


Sense of Justice

by Darklady



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bad motives, Bad people behaving badly, Blair Sandburg is guilty as hell, Crack, Dark, Happy Ending, Jim Ellison may be innocent, M/M, More triggers than a gun show, Prison, Rape, Sentinel/Guide, Serial Killers, Slash, bad language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-18
Updated: 2013-07-18
Packaged: 2017-12-20 13:57:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/888060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darklady/pseuds/Darklady
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for Moon-ridge. I'll let Caro Dee describe it:</p><p>She asked for:<br/>AU where Jim and Blair meet in prison and fall in love. She prefers a slightly harder characterization where both are actually guilty (not framed) of the crime but not psychotic serial killers (unless you want to go there and think you can pull it off). </p><p>I went there. I so went there. I hope I pulled it off.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sense of Justice

**Author's Note:**

> Caro Dee described what she got as:
> 
> The story has elements of Oz and Shawshank Redemption, plus a slight tinge of Mirror universe from Star Trek. It's a much rougher universe and this Jim clearly never shaped up when he transferred to Major Crimes, which led to the reason for his arrest. Jim is ruthless and cynical and knows just what to expect when he's transfered out of Starkville to Cascade Penitentiary or so he thinks until he meets the most dangerous guy in there, so bad that Kinkaid with his Aryan Army treats him with cautious respect. Oh yeah, oh yeah. *hugs self with glee* The baddest, scariest guy in prison is our very own Blair Sandburg, still recognizable as canon Blair with his own, unique, off-the-wall but effective flair.
> 
> FYI - this is not a formal Moonridge story. I did not 'win' the right to fill the bid.
> 
> Warning: NOT fluffy. This thing has so many triggers it should be kept in a gun safe.

"On your feet." 

Jim ducked his head. The prison bull swung his baton over the van full of men before the steel doors were even fully open. No surprise there. These were guards - not cops. Which meant that a) they were losers and knew it and b) the men on this chain were the hardest of hard cases c) the guards didn't stand a chance if they gave the prisoners here half an shot at payback. All of which added up to d) heads were going to get busted.

'Wild Jim' Ellison had no particular fear of that - being one of the hardest of the hard cases - but also didn't see how getting banged up this early would do him any good. Leaning back, he let the guy behind him take the hit.

Jim knew he's have to make his bones, and better sooner than later, but this was too soon and hassling the guards out here in the admissions yard was you classic no-win scenario. Better to wait until he could get some props for his pain.

"Move it out. This ain't the Hilton."

No shit. The Cascade Penitentiary was Washington State's highest security prison. Starkville had been, but last month the Warden and half the half the crew had gone down for setting up fights. (Plus any number of other crappy and criminal things that wouldn't have counted if murder one hadn't been number one on the list.) Starkville was closed for the duration, and when it reopened Warden Jack-ass and his bully boys would be enjoying the view from the other side of the bars.

Couldn't have happened to a nicer bunch. He would have cheered, except that now Jim was out a regular source of jail income. Passing on his unarmed combat training had paid well - from both sides. Cash, privileges, and most of all … respect. The true gold of prison dealings. Made his time in hell… not so bad. Nothing he couldn't handle … once he had gotten a few things (read people) sorted out.

But that was gone now. Starkville had been shut down; the prisoners split off into whatever other pen could be found for them. Only the serious hard timers had been shipped over to "SeaPee". Lot of the lightweights had been shifted down to the county lockups. Most of the non-violent offenders had copped early parole. 

His old roomie had gone that way. By now Jim figured the man was back in Seacouver with his girlfriend. Which - again - couldn't have happened to a nicer guy. Plus it meant that Jim didn't have to watch a **second** back in addition to his own. 

"Go on." The chain of men shuffled down the concrete hall. Grid front cells lined each side. Most of them were empty, but from the evidence not uninhabited. Jim could see posters. Books. The usual detris of prison life.

Must be exercise time. Good plan, bringing the new guys in while the population was out. Reduce distractions. Increase control. Possibly - just possibly - the crew here were not all total morons. Not that Jim would have put money on that.

The line jerked to a stop. One guard opened a cell door, while another unclipped two men and pushed them into their new home. Then the line started up until - a few yards down - the ritual was repeated.

Jim was the last in line, and the odd numbers meant he went in alone. Alone for now. Smell told him there was someone else in the cell. Stranger. 

Jim kicked his slippers off and dropped down on the unclaimed cot. He wasn't going to sleep tonight, so he might as well catch what he could while he had the chance.

x*****************x

"Who're you?"

Jim's new cellmate stood by the door. Punk kid. Barely twenty-something, with that white-bread look that somehow pasted itself on his Asian features. How the fuck did he end up in here? Not that it was Jim problem. He wasn't going to let it be.

"Ellison. Jim." And no damn threat to your scrawny ass, Jim added mentally. Although the kid couldn’t know that.

"Danny Choi" The kid plopped onto his own bunk - not half as scared as he should be given he was locked in with a guy who could break him with one hand. So either the kid had serious friends or no sense of self-preservation. Given that the boy still showed all his own teeth? Had to be the first.

He looked closer - not staring (a violation of jailside etiquette that could get you shanked) but still… observing. No tattoos visible but… the orange jumpsuit could cover a lot of arm.

Jim had had his share of run ins with the Yazuka back on the Cascade streets. Those gangs weren't major players in the city drug scene - at least not in terms of numbers - but where they hit the streets the other gangsters tended to walk careful. Hopefully it was that. Jim didn't need another pigeon to protect. Not until he had established his own credit.

Still, the kid was no immediate threat and **in** no immediate threat so? Jim stuffed the thin pillow under his neck and went back to not-quite-sleep.

x*****************x

Dinnertime. Danny had joined the hall lineup, and Jim had fallen in behind him. The guards tried to keep everyone quiet, but there were the usual signals that flew between prisoners. In Danny's case, flashes from what were clearly the other members of his gang. In Jim's? Far less friendly looks that carried just as much meaning. By the time he took his seat at one of the back tables he had a pretty clear idea of who planned to be in his face and - more important - who else planned to wait until they thought he had turned his back.

He picked at the tuna-something casserole. Or cat food and noodles, from the smell. No loss, and never smart to go into a fight with a full stomach. Downright stupid to let food poisoning weaken his response time. He had at least two men assessed as likely to jump him tonight. Three more that maybe might if they saw him go down. Too bad for all five that Jim planned to win.

The real danger wasn't them. The real danger was the middle-aged man at the corner table. The one with the crew cut and the crew. The one who hadn't bothered to look up when the new men had come in. That - Jim knew - didn't mean the man didn’t care. Just the opposite. It meant he didn't have to bother with looking, because he had people who had already given him the who and what and why.

Jim nudged the stranger sitting beside him and nodded slightly, indicating the group.

"Kincaid," the man grunted into his potatoes.

"Sons of Liberty" another guy, the one across the table, added under his breath. By tone, he made it sound like son of a bitch. Which Jim figured was on target. White supremacists. Common vermin in any jail, and a brute force in prisons where gang alliances were daily life and death. Long term, a problem, but … not tonight. Jim figured the man would wait a few days. Check the newcomers out. Give them time to prove themselves before issuing any invitations, and then a little more before issuing any threats.

By the time Garrett Kincaid got serious? Well, any luck at all and Jim would have his own alliances locked in and Kincaid could fuck himself. 

The same went for all the other gangs. They would take their time, see who he hooked up with and on what terms. After all, why risk their own men tenderizing the new meat when the crazies would do it for free?

"Hi guys!"

Jim looked up. Leaning between two of the men on the other bench was … well, Jim had no fucking idea WHAT it was. Other than…? 

"Freddy, all that starch is _so_ not healthy." He leaned over and picked a cookie off of the plastic tray. "You ought to be eating more salad."

Was the guy fucking nuts? Mouthing off like that? Not to mention? You could - make that _would_ \- get stabbed for stealing food. But Freddie was already standing.

Jim took in the big blue eyes, the square face framed by the long sweep of chestnut curls. Gorgeous, but not in the effeminate way he'd come to associate with prison queens. Still, the man had to be. The man wore a feather bracelet and **earrings** for christsake. Who other than the few true queers got that sort of royal privilege? 

"Oh, tell Louie in the kitchen to use the Light Ranch."

Shit. What sort of magic did this guy have? Queen status might let him swan among the general population, but if he was giving orders to the staff? Was he some Mafia don's 'wife'?

"Sure thing, Doc."

OK. That might answer it. Drug connection. Which might mean he was also dealing to the guards. Drug connection and some major somebody's 'wife'. Which was double fucked. Which might mean that Jim was in deeper shit than he had thought.

The newcomer held out his hand. "Blair Sandburg."

"Jim Ellison." 

"From?" The grip was firm, warm yet masculine.

"Starkville". 

That earned a disappointed head shake.

"Cascade."

OK. That earned a nod. Clearly a more acceptable answer.

"In for?"

Jim wasn't going to fall for that. "Don't you know? We're all innocent."

"Fair enough." The man laughed, a low and somehow knowing chuckle that seemed to pull in the listeners. "What were you _framed_ for?"

"Shotgun to a kidnap victim." Jim shrugged. It was true enough, except for the part where it wasn't his shotgun or his kidnapping. But he wasn't going to say that. Where he was, it was a lot safer to be a killer than a cop.

"Thought kidnapping was Federal?" One of the other men asked. Not curious, really. More like someone making conversation.

"No body." Again, true enough - and nowhere near enough. No body. No ransom. NO indication of action over a state line. Not even a call to the FBI to back up the popular panic. Nothing but a bunch of bullshit from the 'grieving mother' and lying witness.

Blair stood, smiling like a man who had learned something. "I’ll give Freddie back his seat." He was two tables away before he turned back. "But I'm sure you'll see me around."

Jim turned to… "Fred, right?"

"Yeh?" The guy chewed though a forkful of greens.

"This… Sandburg?" Jim was good at names. ""You know him?"

"Everybody knows the mojo man."

Screw subtlety. Wasn't like this was Martha Stewart at dinner. "What's he cost?"

That got Jim some rolled eyes from down the table. "Your soul, man. Your soul."

What Jim had figured.

Pity. Jim hadn't minded the occasional buddy-fuck even when the other brand was practically on tap, and in prison? Lambchop there was one **fine** piece of meat. Too bad taking a taste would be biting off more than Jim could chew.

x*****************x

Great. Shower time. And from the looks of all the guys carefully _not_ looking at him, Jim thought, it was showtime.

After the long drive in the transfer van he knew he stank - to his own nose and to everyone else's. Unfortunately, he also knew that that prison punks weren't the polite type who would wait until his hair was clean before they jumped. Not to mention that soap could lead to slippery footing. Nope, Jim decided. Better to stand back and just get the bruising over with. Save the hot water for tomorrow, when the survivors would know better then to hassle him. 

Jim picked out one of the bruisers he had spotted checking him out earlier. Big. Gym muscles overbuilt to look impressive. Probably clumsy as hell. A quick win would discourage the amateurs and impress the pros. He made eye contact. Nodded. Bring it on.

x*****************x

Twenty minutes later three pissed-off guards were dragging Jim back to his cell. Which? All considered? Could be worse.

They could, after all, be taking him to solitary. That was what Jim had expected - given that fighting was (of course) against the rules. Making it one of the reasons that new fish got jumped. Lose and get bruises. Win and get the pit. Your classic lose/lose situation. Except that Jim had experienced isolations a lot nastier than three days on the floor of a concrete box, and had trained himself to think of it as recovery time with room service.

But surprisingly, none of the four men that had 'tried' Jim had narked. Not even the guy with the dislocated shoulder.

Twenty witnesses had lied (badly) about an 'unfortunate shampoo accident'. Which no one believed (the guards were lazy - not turnip stupid) but which suited everyone's agenda. 

Especially - apparently - the curly haired guy who lounged in the corner, watching everything and not saying anything. Jim didn't mind. Curly had one hell of a cute ass. If he'd had time, Jim would have been watching right back. As it was? He reassured himself he had 'measured up' well against the competition. In every sense of 'measure'. 

Jim did his best not to smile as the guards quick-marched him along.

x*****************x

Morning came too damn early - like always. Still, Jim had managed a few hours solid sleep before his cell door lurched open - indicating the breakfast run.

Jim made sure he looked good going down the hall - no hint in his step of his many sore muscles - and was rewarded by the occasional smile or nod from the passing inmates. Word had gotten around, and clearly it was a good word. Didn't mean he wouldn’t be challenged again. He would - and more seriously by a lot more serious men - but he had the start of a decent place in the prison pecking order. In these early days, that was enough.

There was a space open at Kincaid's table.

Jim made damn certain not to catch anyone there's eye. No way he going to be part of that sort of shit, but right now he couldn’t afford to piss the man off. In another week or two, yes. By then he would have his own 'friends'. Or at least people who were happier when Jim wasn't their enemy. But right now? He knew he looked like Kincaid's sort. Without at least the prospect of protection, Jim knew he'd be bait for the Black, Latino, and other gangs. 

He took his tray to a back table. Somewhere he could watch the room.

Breakfast was crap. Burnt toast. Bad coffee. Plastic eggs. The smell was enough to make a man puke, but… Jim knew he had to eat. So - like the Army had taught him - just close his nose and shovel.

Probably why he missed the bacon until it landed on his plate.

"What tha…. ?" Sandburg. Again. Jim hadn't even seen him coming.

Man was even more distracting at second viewing. He'd left off the uniform shirt, and his white tee was rolled to show the complex tribal tattoo banding one bicep. A black leather band circled his neck before it disappeared under the neckline.

"Eat up." Sandburg was sliding into a space that was - once again - suddenly vacant. Just like last night. Although, Jim noted, this time it was a whole new crew that was getting out of Sandburg's path. "That's the good stuff. Free range. Organic feed. Apple hickory smoked." The man picked a single strip off of Jim's tray. Sharp white teeth bit into the crisp end. "Just like mom would make. Well, your mom. Or if my mom wasn't a Jewish vegetarian and all that." He laughed. The whole table joined in, half a beat behind.

"What the hell are you …" He waved his fork at the tall glass of green… whatever… that the other man was sipping.

"Algae shake. Vital source of micronutrients. But I figured you'd rather have the meat."

"Nice of you to share."

"I'm a sharing guy. Just ask anyone." Sandburg waved at the room behind him.

Their table seated a dozen. Ten heads were nodding vigorously.

"So why me?" Jim was trusting the setup less and less every second. And every second, it seemed that 'set up' was indeed the word. But…? What could be in it for Sandburg? 

"You're new."

"And?"

"I like meeting new people."

"I don't." At least not people he didn't trust - which meant everybody. Trusting people just set you up for taking their fall. That went double for everybody in this joint, and triple for this Sandburg. Even if he was the hottest thing on the menu.

"You haven't met me yet." Sandburg's eyes tracked slowly over Jim's body. Or should he say _though_. It felt like the guy had x-ray vision. "And I haven't met anyone like you."

Sandburg stood, leaving the table just as abruptly as he had arrived.

Jim didn't breath until he was six feet gone. Man was either a headcase or a snitch, and bad news either way.

Still? He took a bite. The bacon was damn good. Picking another slice from Sandburg's abandoned tray, Jim chowed down. The other guys around him – those lucky enough to share in the treat - were doing the same thing.

x*****************x

After breakfast came work assignments. Jim hadn't been in this block long enough to gain either pull or privilege, so he was stuck with mop duty. Still, could be worse.

The other two guys on the crew were evident nobodies. Meaning Jim didn't have to watch his own back, and maybe could get on theirs for a little info.

"You know Sandburg?"

"Everybody knows 'da mojo man." The tone implied this was like… everybody knows the earth is round.

"So what's his deal?"

"Doc runs the library."

"The library" Jim paced back to the bucket, squeezing out his mop. Silence usually got the other guy talking.

"That, and he teach the GED courses. Lot of guys? That's a big thing." A splash of dirty water punctuated that Lamont was not - in fact - one of 'those' guys. "Get that and it ups your chance for parole."

"So he's Mother Teresa, that still doesn't explain…" How he could pull the shit he did. Hell, Jimmy Hoffa couldn't have pulled half the shit Sandburg did. Not even back before he was pillar three holding up Cascade Stadium. Sandburg was his own crazy globe of unreality, and that made Jim nervous.

The bucket guy frowned. "Brujo, he don't explain. He just … he has los ojos."

"Wasn't asking **him** to explain.

"Look, hombre. You treat the Brujo right; he's … what you say…like the Mother Teresa. Disrespect him. He's just a real mother. Cross him, you better not sleep." The man flicked his mop level, miming a restless night.

Jim swiped down another few feet of tile. "Sounds like every other man here."

"Mojo man - he's like nobody here. I say you don't sleep - I mean you better **never** . Not even in solitary if you got twenty guards and the warden himself watching your back."

Jim nodded, meaning 'go on'.

"Early days, there was this guy. Lash. Crazy dude. I mean - like way psycho. Skin-you-and-wear-your-hair psycho. He decide to take on the Doc."

"And?"

"Crazy dude, he trapped the Sandman in the dentist’s office and almost killed him. Would have if an orderly hadn't stumbled in."

"So? Sounds like Sandburg got lucky."

The bucket guy snorted at the interruption, agreement and dismissal in a single grunt.  
Mop guy kept on with the story. "So they take Sandburg back to his cell, and Lash guy into lockdown, and the next morning when they come in to get him…. get this…. the Lash guy had CLAWED OUT HIS OWN EYES."

"Bullshit."

"No shit, white boy. Ask anyone. They drag Lash away he was screaming 'who am I?' Freaky."

"Si." Manuel - the bucket guy - backed Lamont up. "And later, there was once this kid. Ventris. College boy. Muchacho was doing a short run for Arson."

"Man sent him down on arson. Had him up for rape as well but…. chick shut up once her place burned down, you dig?"

Jim nodded. He did indeed.

"So the gordeto boy, tried for a piece of the Doc. You know - _that_ piece."

"Yeh. And the doc, he just _smiles_.And a week later? The trustees? They find rich boy in the toilet. He had bled to death."

"Guardia, he called it suicide."

"So?" Jim swiped the floor with deliberate indifference. "Lots of frat brats can't do the time."

"Yeh man. What you say. But this cat didn't cut his wrists - he TORE OFF HIS OWN BALLS."

"OK." Jim stopped. Turned. "That's weird shit."

"Ninguna mierda." Manuel side-kicked the bucket, sending dirty suds splattering over the concrete. " Si consiguiera a algún forastero yo podría vender la historia al Indagador Nacional y luego yo sería el hombre rico."

"And you think this Sandburg guy did it?" Which, if true, would make Sandburg was serious whack job and - yes - someone to be treated very VERY gently. Raw nitro in a sawmill gently.

"That's the weirdest part. The Doc don't do nothin'."

"Si. Senor Brujo was sitting in his cell the whole time. He does this meditation thing." Manuel squatted, arms up, something between a head banger and Yoda. "He just sings and plays with his feather and… then maybe someone is dead, comprende?"

"So the story gets around to the brothers and nobody - but nobody - messes with the Doc."

x*****************x

Jim knew it was a bad idea, but he couldn’t kill this… awareness… of Sandburg. It was like he could hear the man's heartbeat, or smell him or … something. Sandburg would go somewhere, and Jim would find himself following behind without even thinking. And Sandburg went _everywhere_. To the library, to the TV room. to the gym. Blair Sandburg would bounce from group to group like Satan's cruise director, and Jim Ellison was the jetsam in his wake, silent and shaken.

At lunchtime Jim had - not even thinking - taken his tray right behind Sandburg. They had sat at the Nation of Islam table, for christsake. But no one had said anything. Or nothing but ‘nice weather’ and ‘want my extra fries’. He had fallen into the Sandburg Zone.

After lunch had been laundry detail, which had meant Jim and twenty other guys folding clean sheets while Blair Sandburg lounged on the pile of dirties with his laptop. One more thing that shouldn't have been in prison, and one more proof that he - Jim Ellison - had left reality for the Sandburg Zone. Rod Sterling would be stepping in any minute.

After work came yard time.

Jim settled on a bench, using the free weights and working on curls. He would have preferred a weight bench, but they were taken and… this early in his stay he didn't have a spotter. Plus sitting up let him keep an eye on Sandburg as the man spiraled from group to group, some complex orbit that in seeming random let him tap every convict in its veering path.

Focused as he was, Jim almost missed when the second man joined him on his bench.

"Ellison"

"Kincaid. I'm honored." And - he was. Jim had figured that one of the lieutenants would send the invite. So early, and from the big man himself? Didn't mean that Jim wouldn’t still turn him down - just that he'd need to do so a lot more politely. Sally hadn't raised her boys to be rude.

"Figured I'd warn you - one white man to another." Kincaid gestured across the floor. "Watch out for the jewboy. He's meaner then he looks."

"He'd have to be." Because right now the kid looked like a fluffy puppy. Maybe a Springer Spaniel in a pack of Rotweillers. He was out in center court, playing a pickup game of one-on-many with a bunch of guys who matched him elbow to eye level. Funny thing was, Hairboy was holding his own.

Jim rested a moment, taking in the site of Sandburg shooting under the arms of a dozen players to make a three point shot.

Blair laughed, and the guys he had just trounced laughed with him.

"Don't let the nature-child act fool you. Little bastard is as sharp as they come."

Nothing to say to that.

"Know what he's in for?" Kincaid asked.

Jim shook his head.

"Same as me." Kincaid smiled. Well - showed teeth. "Domestic terrorism."

"Shit."

"But in my case it was fifteen hard for practicing my Second Amendment rights."

Right. The right to keep and bare two tons of high-nitrate explosive. Plus doing _real_ well at organizing a militia. Some of Kincaid's militia had ended in Starkville, and they hadn't been particularly quiet about how they'd been 'railroaded' by the 'federalist oppressors'.

"Him?" Both men watched as Blair shook out his hair and went back to the starting line.  
"He's doing life without."

"For what?" If gunning down an ATF agent didn't get more than fifteen? What the hell could Sandburg have done? Because for all the juju hoodoo, he just didn't come across as the vicious type. "Building his own atom bomb in Chem lab?"

Kincaid chucked. "Our little prince there is more a First Amendment guy. He decided to picket Cyclops Oil. Didn't like how they were 'exploiting' the jungle bunnies down in South America. Then when they didn't listen? He peaceably assembled a commando team that took out twenty-seven of the upper management. Including the CEO and the entire board of directors. Using blowguns."

A raised eyebrow asked Jim's question.

"Silent, non-metallic, untraceable, and _very_ effective. At least with the right poisons. Lot of forensic types are still debating if the vics died outright, or if the drugs just paralyzed them and left them conscious enough to notice when they burned to death." Kincaid's expression was one of gentle approval. "That was the night when 'person's unknown' went C-4 on the Cyclops refinery."

"Jesus."

"At least a close relative - according to his followers."

"You sound impressed."

"You're not?"

"He's here." Killer comeback to killers. It wasn't a perfect crime if you landed in the slammer.

"Nothing except the paperwork was every traced back to Sandburg, and damn little of that. He could have walked if he's been willing to deal. Any deal. But… not a word. Hell, not a note. He took the hit and every one of his people got away clean. Lot of people even say that's why he stayed. To give them cover. " Kincaid leaned back. "That's a man of honor. Of respect."

"I could use a man like him in the movement."

Jim didn't think it was a movement Sandburg would have much use for. "Too bad he's not the right race."

"Blue eyes." Kincaid rubbed his chin, clearly considering. "He can't be all hebe."

Kincaid started away, but at three steps turned back. "We're a modern party. We can understand that the people we don’t… share much with…aren’t always our enemies. They may still have something to offer. Sometimes we have to consider what interests we might in common. Different approaches to a common good. Sometimes – when the outcome is vital enough – we find a way to work together. Just like I hope I can work with you."

OK. That was strange. No. Downright weird. It sounded like Kincaid not only wanted something (because in the pen everyone wanted something) but actually like Kincaid though Jim had something he needed. Which was crap. Even if the man knew Jim’s background – knew that he had once been a cop – surely he couldn’t think that Jim still had connections in Cascade?

Nonsense. If Jim had ever had pull, the Cascade PD wouldn’t have thrown him to the wolves. He surely couldn’t think Jim had racial connections? (Not that Jim doubted for one second that the force had the usual ratios of Kincaid sympathizers – even supporters – but again – not that had done Jim any favors during his trial. Plus logic indicated that Kincaid would have a better line on his own friends than a convicted ex-cop. He had to know Jim pulled less than zero in those quarters.)

Whatever was in Kincaid’s mind, there was nothing to be done about it now. Jim went back to watching the game.

Sandburg's hands. 

The ball in Sandburg's hands.

The orange ball, so bright and flying and…

"Man??" Sandburg was shaking Jim's shoulder. "Snap out of it. Dinner time. You gotta move."

Jim's world snapped back to 1:1 scale.

"I was… lost in thought."

"Bad scene, man. The screws here get nervous when people think."

x*****************x

Fuck. This was getting freaky.

Jim had blown off dinner for an hour in the computer room. Connections were slow and sludge and filtered to the point of crap but… it was enough to confirm enough of what Kincaid had said that Jim was now convinced the fluffy puppy had six inch fangs. Plus probably rabies.

On the other hand? He also had a grudging respect for the guy's opinions.

Not to mention his balls.

Cyclops Oil had a license to drill up in the Chopec Pass. Bother the flowers and furries. So far so bad, but not something that would have sent Ranger Jim for his rifle. But then the natives had decided to object, which lead Chopec Oil to object to the natives. Natives had decided that Cyclops Oil crews would be better somewhere else. Cyclops Oil had decided the natives would be better replacing said crews - at least when it came to the shit work. Without, of course, the pay or the right to quit. Stir in some mercenaries with helicopters and hellfire missiles? No more problem. Also no more natives, and very few trees, animals, plants, or anything else but soot and oil derricks.

The Sierra Club had sent a strongly worded letter. Blair Sandburg - an anthropologist who had been studying the tribes before everything 'blew up' (literally) sent something else. Guess who made the biggest impression? 

Jim looked closer at the news photo. Hundred foot smoking crater. That was one hell of an impression.

The Peruvian government had intervened, random maybe-bad-guys had been arrested, Cyclops Oil and been fined and then expelled, the entire Chopec region had been declared off-limits to pretty much everyone, and what life may have survived went back to whatever normal they could scrape together.

Naomi Sandburg had fired off a victory proclamation to the New York Times.

Blair Sandburg had been arrested at Ranier College minutes after presenting his doctoral dissertation. (Or, in the D.A.'s terms, his eco-terrorist manifesto.) None of his had-to-be-co-conspirators were even named. Not by him. Not by anyone. Not ever. There was suspicion that they may have gotten away on a tramp steamer - the Chopec Dream - but before anyone could ask the ship was past the three mile limit and lost in the vast Pacific.

The trial had been short and unsweet. Even by Nifong standards. Sandburg had refused to testify. Dean Edwards of Rainier hadn't had the same restraint. The judge had made some conveniently lax rulings as to what was and was not hearsay, and some more on what could and could not be circumstantial, and it had taken the jury all of three hours to rule on accomplice to murder time twenty-seven. Only the proof that Sandburg's body had been absolutely elsewhere at the time of the crimes - however close his heart and mind might have been - had blocked the judge from handing down the death penalty.

Jim stayed, reading what he could, until final lockdown.

x*****************x

When he got back to his cell, Sandburg was waiting. Alone.

"What did you do to the kid?"

"Danny?" Sandburg shrugged. "He decided that he'd swap quarters with me. And let me tell you - he got the better end of that deal." The man looked around the room with comic despair. "If I'm staying, I'll definitely have to do something about the Feng Shui here.

He leaned back on Danny's bunk, which had somehow grown a knit afghan and about a dozen polychrome pillows.

"Don't get too comfy." Jim warned. "You won't be staying."

"I think maybe I will." Blair pulled off his shirt, showing a chest of dark curls and … something inside Jim wanted to whimper… a gold nipple ring. He couldn’t drag his eyes from the glint, not even to follow the treasure trail down into the well-filled boxers.

Damn the man was hot.

Jim had never considered himself _gay_. At least, not in the sense that he went for pansies. He liked men well enough, but men who were men. Starting with his football coach and ending… well, apparently it hadn't ended. Not looking at what he was looking at here. But until tonight all the men Jim had fucked had been older and - when possible - even tougher than himself.

Until tonight.

Stung, he snarked at Sandburg. "Why the hell should I let you just move in?"

The other man just grinned. "I know what you are."

"One pissed off guy who's about to smack your ass out of his cell?"

"Good try." Blair slid lower, legs parting. "No. What you really are. What I saw in the yard."

"A stone killer?"

"A Watchman." The man was head down, peering though a veil of curls as if keeping secrets allowed him to see Jim's.

Now Jim was truly offended. "Like some mall guard rent-a-cop?"

"Like a Tribal Guardian."

"Are you on something? " Jim started. "Forget that. Make that _what_ are you on? Because you have got to be…"

"Seriously, man." Blair twisted upright, stretching. "It's like… anthropology. History. Legend. I've been tracking the Sentinel story since I was sixteen and my mother and I met this old guy in Tibet who… Forget it. That's not important. This is. This is my life dream. It was what my thesis topic was going to be… before things changed."

"Thesis?"

"They don't just call me Doc because I know what's up. Pigs picked me up on the way out of my doctoral defense."

"Ouch."

"Tell me about it. I had to sue the school for my degree."

Which was… weird on so many levels. Including…? "Wouldn't think that would matter." Not once you were doing life plus.”

"I always get what's mine." Blair licked his lips. "But that's not what matters. What matters is you."

"Me, Chief?"

"You. What you are."

Blair paced closer. There wasn't much space for Jim to retreat.

"This watcher."

"Watchman." Stopping mere inches away, Blair stroked lightly down Jim's shirt. "In every tribe there was this one man. The Sentinel. He was chosen by the spirits - given senses beyond those of normal men - senses that would let him hear people plotting against the tribe, smell enemies in hiding, see war bands when they were still miles away.

"He was like the guardian. The protector. He looked out for the tribe, kept them safe, protected them from their enemies and gave them justice."

Jim shivered. "Tell it to the D.A. She didn't think I was this great defender of the law."

"Not law, Jim. Justice. Not the same thing, and nowadays not even much connected." Blair went to his toes, his breath hot against Jim's neck. It was moist, and rich, and scented with some spice that Jim had never tasted but somehow was already addicted to. "And the other thing you are? You're my Blessed Protector."

That snapped Jim back to now. "You're looking for a strong arm?"

"Strong arm, strong back." Blair looked the other man over openly, up down and around. "You're pretty much strong all over. Face, chest, hips…" Blair's fingers followed his words. "Ohh… there too.

Jim trapped the trespassing hand at the top of his crack. "Where do you get the idea I'm gonna give up my ass?"

Blair growled, low and dirty. "Where do you get the idea that I plan to top?"

**************

Jim came into breakfast the next morning at Sandburg's side. Hell, it was practically a damn marriage march. Except that - different from every experience and expectation - the unspoken sneers that you'd expect the cons to have for anyone who was now the bosses butt-boy was … shockingly absent. If anything, there was an edge of congratulatory envy. Which might mean that Sandburg's taste for the bottom was public gossip. Except? Sandburg wasn't getting the hairy eye either.

Jim was impressed. Some of these guys, you could hold a knife to their balls and they'd still spit on you if they thought you were queer. Of course, in Sandburg's case it was less a knife and more an unidentified blunt object (and he someday had to find out how he pulled off that trick with Ventris) but even so. The man had spiritual cohones even bigger and brassier then his real ones. And Jim could testify that Blair's balls were very nicely sized indeed.

Blair guided them past the line of slop trays to a table in the back corner.

No sooner had Jim's rear hit the chair then one of the inmate cooks was there with plates.

"Waffles?" It was a sincere question because… golden, crispy, stacked high with a mound of soft butter… Where the hell had these come from?

"You no like?" The man was six foot plus, one eared, and looked like he was about to burst into tears at Sandburg's possible displeasure.

"This is very good, Chang." Blair's voice was soothing. "Especially the orange juice."

"Fresh squeezed. Straight from warden's tree. Gardener boy picks just for you."

"I will remember to thank him."

Jim waited until the man was three feet away. "What's with the white glove service?"

"You're my friend. Chang is… a different sort of friend. My friends like to help my friend."

Jim pointed to another guy, one who had gone though the food line and was now standing with a plate of bacon.

"He also your friend?'

"He's…also the other sort of friend. The grateful type. There are many thankful people here who just want to… repay a little kindness." Blair turned to the second prisoner. "Right, Andy?

"Yeh, we all appreciate the Doc.” Bacon guy told Jim, his voice solid with sincerity. “When I came in I had a read bad drug problem. My veins were all flat from shooting street shit and… it was a bad scene, man. But the Doc, he helped me get better. I always remember that."

Jim thought that over. "Better - straight?"

They waiter guy - Andy - Jim remembered the name - laughed. "Better stuff."

He was gone without saying more. Jim turned his attention to Sandburg. "I thought you didn't deal?"

Now it was Blair's turn to laugh. "I don't - but I have friends down South. You know how it goes."

He did. In jail, everything was for sale; including peace, privacy, and a piece of the next fellows ass. Sandburg had some crazy connection, and he was using it to buy one and two and to keep himself from being on the market as number three. 

"And your friends there help your friends here?"

"Then my friends here - and their friends outside - return the favor."

A part of Jim, the was-a-cop part, was appalled. The convict side just wrote it down as smart survival, with the automatic mental note to navigate carefully. Blair's dealings could be good or very bad for Jim's survival. Good for now because? Hey, there were waffles. Bad because if the authorities - or the rival bosses - started sending down shit? Jim would get dumped on as an accomplice.

"The world is a better place when people help each other." Blair's fork waved, encircling some universal precept. 

“So you… pay it forward?”

Blair smiled his agreement. "You know what they say. To have a friend, you have to be one."

Jim frowned at that. He figured there's be a quid-pro-quo, even beyond the sex, but… "I'm not sure being your friend is such a good idea."

"Jim." Blair leaned closer. "I've already told you man. You and me? We're a done deal. It's like destiny, man."

"I'm not going to…" He wasn't certain what he wasn't, but giving in too far could be fatal so…

"Nobody asked you to… whatever you are thinking of." Blair shook his hair, dismissing everything from whore to dope mule to enforcer. Plus all the other wild evils that Jim had not had time to think up. Staying close, he took Jim's hand into his. "Jim. You're my Sentinel. I'm your Guide. That's like… sacred, man. All I'm going to do is help you and all you are going to do is trust me."

x*****************x

Jim shook out his mop. Work detail. Again.

Sandburg was off to the library, and Jim was back on mop duty. Which sucked, but also in some strange way restored the order of the universe. At least, hinted that there was some corner that wasn't entirely under Sandburg's spell.

He had squeegee’d a damp path halfway down to B block when the order came.

"Ellison" 

Guards. Two of them. One holding chains. This was so not going to be Jim's day.

" Come along." That was the uglier, fatter one. Although really, Jim thought, not much difference there. Flat noses. Tiny eyes dull with disinterest. This pair, you could see in their faces why Sandburg called them pigs. "You got a visitor."

Shitty visitor, considering how happy the man sounded. He could ask who, but from their smirks Jim figured they'd keep back the info just to irk him. So why bother? It couldn’t be anyone Jim wanted to see - for the simple season that there _was_ no one Jim wanted to see. His mother was dead, his father and brother had forgotten his name, and if it was that two-bit prick that had taken every dime Jim had and then all but rolled over for the D.A. in an effort to get Jim to plead guilty and 'save them all the pain of a trial'? Well, if that shyster ever showed his face again Jim figured he'd be doing his time for a _double_ homicide.

Jim just held out his hands.

His escort didn't say another word as they took him into the interview room.

On the other side of the table was the only man Jim Ellison wanted to see _less_ then his fucking lawyer.

"Why CAPTAIN Banks. Here for the Police Benevolent Fund? Unfortunately, I gave at the office."

"Ellison. Sit." 

Man didn't ask for much now, did he? Stay. Roll over (on your friends). Play fucking dead.

One guard pushed Jim into a chair and locked the leg irons.

"So. You're back in Cascade."

"I go where I'm told and do what I'm told." Jim kept his voice a careful blank. "In a way it's just like Major Crimes. I remember that's how you liked to run things."

"I remember you liked to run your mouth."

Not that it made any difference, Jim figured. Simon Banks was here for something, and that something was something for Simon Banks. Jim's opinion had never mattered worth shit. Not now, not then.

Banks took a deep breath, clearly putting himself back on track to… whatever.

"You used to be a cop."

Jim noticed Banks didn't say 'good cop'. Twice officer of the year, and it didn't mean shit compared to some bitch stepmother with a fake alibi and a PR firm. Heat had gone on, and then the brass couldn’t throw Jim Ellison to the wolves fast enough. Bastards.

"They tell me you gave good info against Warden Hanlon."

Jim raised his linked hands - the classic gesture of 'and look what that got me'.

"That's not forgotten."

Yeh right. Big whoop. When Hanlon's boys hit the pen, Jim was in for another batch of beat-down. This time without the prize.

"Governor noticed. You give us a little more - prove remorse - it could have a big effect on the parole board."

Yeh right. Like Bruckley's campaign 'donations'. Like the big effect of the dead kid's weeping bitch of a stepmother. While she was pulling that shit for the press, Jim Ellison was never getting off.

"Let me guess. You're not thinking a nice condolence card."

Banks slapped the table. "You are such an asshole. Why do I even bother…"

"Good question. Why did you?" Because they both knew it wasn't some suddenly discovered worry about Jim's well being.

Simon Banks visibly cranked down his frustration. "I hear you're bunking with Blair Sandburg."

Ah, now they were getting somewhere. Somewhere serious, if Banks was willing to acknowledge Jim's bisexuality - however indirectly. That made twice in a lifetime - and the first had been when Banks had tried to 'kick your sick ass back to Vice where they have to deal with that sort of shit'.

"There is the chance you might… hear something…"

Jim said nothing - just stated back and watched the blood rise behind the Captain's dark cheeks.

"Damnit, Ellison, the man is a killer!"

"No", Jim answered. "That's me. Sandburg went down for conspiracy."

"Conspiracy to commit **terrorism**. His followers blew up a refinery and killed TWENTY SEVEN AMERICANS! Here! In Cascade!" Banks got a grip on the table edge - and himself. " Damn it, Ellison. You were a Ranger. What happened to your patriotism?"

"No idea, Captain." Jim leaned back, crossing his ankles as much as the shackles allowed. "Why ever would **I** doubt the system?"

"Fuck you!"

"So we're back to Sandburg."

"Damn you Ellison. You were the biggest jackass I was ever forced to work with and you're worse now but…"

"You need something." Jim finished.

Banks took two deep breaths. "We know Sandburg's talking to the outside. We just don't know how. Or to whom, although obviously there must still be remnants of his cult here in Washington. Or - and this is where it gets serious - what he is planning."

Simon Banks pulled a folded sheet from his breast pocket and slid it across the table.

"These are the names we have of people we don't have. Give us info to find them - any of them - and the governor is willing to have you relisted as a non-violent offender. You'd be eligible to finish your time in minimum security.

Banks stood. "Think about it. A private room. Your own phone. Your own TV. Hell, the place even has a golf course." 

He paused at the door, one hand on the frame. "Your life could be a lot easier in River Heights. Longer too, once the guys from Starkville get here.

x*****************x

Jim found himself looking forward to lunch - if only to get the bad taste of brass out of his mouth.

Turned out he was invited to a picnic.

As in? He picked.

The guards nicked.

The joy of fire clearance time in Cascade.

Unfortunately, the last week had been dry. That was good from the perspective that dry concrete coffins smelled better than the damp and moldy, but it also meant the fire danger had gone up from the traditional 'couldn’t light it with gelatanite' to something more like 'don't give this a warm glance'. That meant weed whacking the two hundred yards of trash and bramble between the outer wall and Cascadia State Forest, and since the great state of Washington wasn't about to pay for landscapers when they had all that free 'hard labor' on hand? Or at least on a chain?

Right. Connect the dots.

And, of course, the inmates.

For some unknown reason whichever nimrod was in charge of work details had decided that crap had to be cleared today. As of right now. Of course, for all Jim knew the work could have been scheduled a year ago. Wasn't like the zookeepers ever asked the monkey's opinions.

"Hold 'em out."

Jim lifted his leg on command, allowing the guard to first wrap the ankle cuff then attach the work chain. That done, they handed him a rake and a sandwich. He sniffed. Tuna fish - and stale. Crap.

Jim shoved the wrapped mess into his pocket. He'd toss it, but that would just get him 'disciplined' for littering. Oh well, he could always pass it on. Someone would be hungry enough to eat it. Probably.

"Get moving!"

"You guys!" The pig-faced guard jerked Jim's chain by - literally jerking his chain. Hard enough to send the guy in front into Jim, and almost send Jim into the guy at the end of the line. Falling here where you couldn't move to balance yourself and would probably land on a pike of rusty spikes? That would be a serious pain. "Start up north and work back!"

They shuffled off, tools dragging dirt.

Blair Sandburg trotted in front. He, of course, was the water boy. Lucky bastard. Which … yeah… figured.

Most of the time, Jim didn't mind the chain gang. On the one hand - yes - it was uncomfortable and degrading. On the other? It usually meant a chance to look at something other than intuitional drab and breath something other than intuitional stink.

Jim missed the forests. More, in many ways, than he missed comfort or even freedom. Although, in many real ways, the forests had been his freedom.

The lodgepole pines were gray-green in the summer sun. Bottom branches intermingled, shielding the cool grasses of the forest floor. In the middle branches birds nested and pairs of chattering squirrels pawed the old cones for pine nuts. Only the highest branches reached to the full light, and there Jim could spot the morning sap and it glittered and sparked, catching the light and shattering it into a million tiny rainbows that overlapped and shaded each over with a billion shades and tints that caught his eye and spun beyond counting blue and green and gold and red red red….

"Jim?" A sudden noise. "Jim, come back to me."

Sandburg was in front of him, patting his cheek.

"Jim. are you…"

Jim winced at the light. "Fucked." He used the rake handle to push himself upright. " I thought I was past this shit…" This shit that had nearly gotten him killed in the Rangers, and which had gotten him the boot. (Even if they let Jim resign his commission rather than take the psych discharge that the dick of a doc had wanted. Psych papers might have gotten him a few bucks from the VA, but they sure as hell would have screwed his chances with the CPD. So his base commander had done the paperwork shuffle and Jim had taken his years in service over to the civilian side unspotted. (And - the snarky little voice behind his migraine answered - look how well that had worked out.)

Blair held up the water bottle to shield both their faces. "Relax into me. The pain is gone."

And - shockingly - it was. "Better than aspirin." Jim quipped.

"Plus you can have it any time."

"As long as I keep you around."

"Why would I go anywhere?" Blair chucked.

Jim smiled back - a lot less cheerfully. "Because this place is such a palace."

Blair took back the water bottle. "If you could, would you come with me?"

Jim shocked himself with his sincerity. "Chief, there are moments I think I'd even stay here with you."

x*****************x

"Mail call." The guards voice was bored beyond expression, as if he felt some need to cover the one bright spot in the prison day by expressing to his subjects how little he - personally - gave a shit if anyone on the outside gave a shit.

"Albert."

"Anderson."

"Bates"

Some of the yardbirds looked up. More didn't bother. Wasn't like most hard timers had anyone outside to send a letter. Or a prayer. If they had, they maybe wouldn't be hard timers.

"Frick."

"Grant"

"Gleason."

They were going in order, which meant that Ellison was long past and Jim could ignore it as so much background noise.

"Rice"

"Roberts"

"Runardi"

"Salz."

"Here, Sandburg." A guard passed over a large cardboard box. "Your usual groupies send their love.

"Oh, and cookies." Blair unfolded the bright patterned paper and pulled out a lemon bar. He handed it to the nearest guard. "Here. Share the wealth."

The guard took a bite. "Thanks!"

"Jim?" Blair held out the open box.

"Cookies?"

"Mom sends them." Sandburg didn't look up from his meticulous study of the contents.

"Your mother is an international fugitive."

So? Blair's eyebrow seemed to imply. "She's still my mother."

Under Jim's 'bullshit' glare, Blair added "She gives them to friends. They drop them pre-paid priority FedEx from whatever country seems safe. Two or three days later, here they are. And yes, it's a contact." Blair glanced and the guards, shrugged, and smiled. "Not a code. Any formal message thing, CSI might break. Cookies are just her way of letting me know she loves me and that… that matters to me. Family, you know?"

"If you say so."

"Nothing for you?" Sandburg asked, looking over Jim's shoulder as if expecting the UPS man to materialize from behind the guard tower.

"Who'd write?"

"I thought your family might, now that you're back in their neighborhood."

Interesting. So Sandburg had put in some Google time himself. That or he was as psychic as the other perps said. Jim was going with Google, since if the guy could read thoughts he’s have figured out that Jim’s family didn’t give him any. Any thought, that was.

"My family has long since disowned me - and nobody in their neighborhood knows where the hell Starkville is." Jim's father's last message - sent though a corporate lawyer - had been a warning not to expect any help from the family resources. William's privilege and influence wasn't to be squandered on a reprobate prodigal. Personally, Jim would have preferred kin with a little less privilege. It might have left him with a little more compassion. Maybe. 

"And Pendergrast?" Sandburg asked.

"What about Pendergrast?"

Sandburg shrugged. "You think he'd send something. Seeing how you took the rap for him."

Jim's hand went unthinking to Sandburg's neck. "How did you…" Maybe the kid did have something. Not clairvoyance but…

"Watch it!" Blair gurgled. "I'm all in favor of primitive passions, but not so much that one."

Jim frowned. "Jack didn't kill anyone."

And what he had done? Jim wouldn't be the one to send him up for that. Pendergrast was older, weaker, and cops generally didn't last in the stir. Man wouldn't have made it. Jim had. Rough deal. But hey - partners are partners, right? IA be damned.

"No," Sandburg smiled, "but he took the money."

"If he did, it was because he needed it."

"And you didn't?"

Jim stared at the grey walls. To himself alone he whispered, "You have any idea what a kidney costs these days?"

x*****************x

For the rest of the yard time, Jim watched Blair Sandburg flit around like some sit-com cookie fairy. No homoerotic subtext intended. There was little pattern to the man's visits, which in a place as overstructured as a prison was actually slightly terrifying. What was even more so was the population's response.

Not that Jim was surprised that the cons liked the cookies. Who the hell wouldn't like cookies. Hell, back in Jim's Ranger days you could have gotten a crowd for homemade cookies. Would have. And here? That was the spookiest part of all, because while everyone Sandburg spoke to was taking the cookies, no one was *TAKEING* the cookies.

The guards didn't even seem worried, when they should have been looking at riot potential. So either Blair Sandburg had tighter control over vicious felons than Captain Jim Ellison had over his troops, or… there was something very very different going on.

Jim knew how he was going to vote.

Even so?

He drifted up-yard. Not exactly taking his place at the kid's shoulder but… not exactly not.

He arrived just in time to see Blair bowing to a forty-something Asian man with full 'sleeves' tattooed up both arms.

The man was gazing down at the 'care package'.

"Lemon bars." Jim could hear the inhalation of approval. "Very nice."

"Your boys have been so kind to me, Mr. Kadama." Blair's tone was what Jim remembered from his father's housekeeper, the well-bred note of one proudly but modestly accepting a deserved complement. "Even today…" Blair trailed off.

"I am glad young Chang has made a proper impression. The young men today…"

"He was most gracious. A tribute to your leadership." Blair offered a tissue wrapped bundle firmly, with both hands. "It is an honor to be your friend."

"I feel the same, Doctor Sandburg. If there is anything I could do…?"

Somehow… and Jim couldn’t have said exactly how, because there was absolutely **no** change in either man's light expression … the conversation shifted. In the way that strata shifts before an earthquake.

"I am a poor visitor." Blair's tone became as bland - and as phony - as William Ellison congratulating some business rival on his golf win. "How is your cousin’s son Kenji these days. Still working at the docks?

"He is very glad of his opportunity - and thanks you for your recommendation. He mentions that he expects to go far in his new post."

"Then I am glad I could be of some small service to such a worthy young man."

x*****************x

"Sandburg! What the hell was that about?" Jim steered the shorter man into the shadow of a weight rack. Not privacy, exactly, but the closest imitation at hand.

"Sharing is caring, man.” Blair shrugged. “Not to mention that Kadama is the type to get his share willing or not."

"I'm not talking about your little Keebler deal." Jim whispered. "I'm asking how crazy you are. You're hiring some Yazuka bosses cousin?"

"Hey!" Blair managed to sound offended. " _I_ didn't hire him. I just wrote him a letter of recommendation so someone else would."

"Job references?" It came out sounding like 'porn dealer' or some such. Jim was shocked at his own voice.

"Who else could write one?" Blair was the voice of reason. "I'm the only respectable person that these guys will ever know."

"Blair, you're a felon doing life."

"Yes, but I'm not a _criminal_ felon." The reasonable tone became even more so - like a kindergarten teacher explaining why one might want to learn the alphabet. To a rather slow child. "I'm a political prisoner." 

"Twenty seven bodies is one hell of a political statement."

"I never confessed to anything. They could have all… tripped, and hit their head. Nothing to do with me. "

"Tell it to the jury." Jim snapped back. "Oh wait - you did."

"So it's complicated." Blair turned back to an actual human - if you remember your college prof as an actual human. "But as a class construction, I am still acceptable to the management matrix. White. Jewish. PhD. An insider to the structure of privilege where - even if they never so much as jaywalked - these men would always fall outside." Blair closed his eyes, giving that due consideration. "Plus, you know, not everyone disagrees with what happened."

"So you get 'friendly' ex-cons jobs with your big ecology fans."

"Some of them. I have to be selective. Pick the situations where two different paths can meet mutual needs." Blair shifted the box under his arm. "I help where I can, and then, when the chance comes, it's their turn to pay me back."

x*****************x

So Sandburg _was_ up to something.

What - Jim had no idea. And not a hell of a lot of interest, beyond the idea that Simon Banks would be interested. Which raised the question of just how much Jim Ellison was interested in feeding Simon Bank's interest.

God knew Jim owed the man nothing. Other than perhaps a swift kick in the balls. But that was an overdue debt from the first day that 'that fag from Vice' had been imposed on the Captain's pristine private police preserve, and the honest part of Jim conceded that if he hadn't delivered on the beat-down due back in the days when bitch-slapping the bigot wouldn't have been a federal crime? Well, Jim had no one to blame but himself, and would just have to write it off as a bad karmic debt.

The current calculation was whether snitching to Simon would pay off.

Sure - the man had over promised. Jailhouse 'fixers' always did. So take off half for scam, and half again for Simon's ego writing checks that his clout couldn’t deliver. (Like that was new - not! - Jim's memory snarked.) That didn't mean there wasn't some deal to be made. Provided, of course, Jim could first make out what his 'cookie monster' was up to.

"Sandburg." Jim caught up with his cellmate in the library stacks. "You can't be smuggling crack in homemade cookies." It wasn't exactly a question but…?

"What?" Blair laughed. "You don't think the crime lab checked them out?" He tilted his head, as if reviewing an amusing memory. "Viciously. The first three boxes arrived as crumbs. NO, change that. The first three boxes didn't arrive at all until my lawyer got an injunction - and _then_ the crime lab handed over the crumbs." Holding thumb and finger apart, Blair indicated the fragment size. 

"I still get the occasional missing brownie bar." Blair reshelved a volume, shifting it back into proper order. "Personally, I think the lab rats just can't pass up the free snacks."

"So you're not running drugs in the baked goods?" This time it was a question.

Blair held up his right hand, echoing a court gesture. "There is nothing in Mama Naomi's Secret Brownie Mix that is actually on the list of proscribed pharmaceuticals."

"That not an answer."

Blair winked. "Sure it is."

x*****************x

Jim was still considering that - the answer and what he might do with it - though dinner and into evening lockdown. Meaning bedtime. Meaning that, whatever the CPD might offer tomorrow, right now Jim was ready to focus on what Blair Sandburg was kneeling to offer right now. And it wasn't cookies.

Although it was definitely something Sandburg wanted to pop in his mouth.

Something of Jim that Sandburg wanted to pop in his mouth. And roll around. And lick. And savor. And Jim wasn't objecting one little bit. Because while William Ellison may have raised a fool, he hadn't raised a damn fool, and the man who turned down a Sandburg blowjob was….

Well, he wasn't named Jim Ellison, that was for damn sure.

Blair grinned, flashing a condom liberated from god-knows-where.

Message received. Shucking his uniform pants, Jim lay back on the bottom cot.

Sandburg followed, naked and burning, skin on heated skin. His mouth was wet and hot - wet like the ocean and hot like the sun and like either huge and consuming and Jim fell away into the ….

"Come back to me, Jim." A whisper pulled him back. Sandburg's - Blair's - hand was on Jim's thigh, his thumb rubbing gentle circles into the crisp hairs where leg and hip joined. "Come _with_ me, Jim."

Jim's mind was back, back with Blair and back above the waves of pleasure, riding them like the surf Jim remembered from bright teen days at the Washington shore. There were swooping troughs and bright shimmering crests and scattering white aftershocks and each finish brought another beginning until Jim wasn't sure where _he_ began or ended - other than at the edge of Sandburg.

One irresistible hand eased him over.

Jim went willingly, spreading like the sand beneath the overpowering waves.

Blair rolled over him.

Jim was riding the crest of the wave, and then he was the wave and he was ridden, and life the wave he surged up to meet his rider.

"Ohh" Blair moaned, paused at Jim's entrance. "You're so good at that." He massaged Jim's entrance, and Jim could feel the guardian muscles relax to welcome him. "Give to me, Jim. Just a little more and…"

"…I'll freeze." Jim shuddered.

"No you won't." Blair scattered confident kisses on Jim's broad back. "Not when I've got you. Not when I'll guide you. Let yourself go man. Take it all in and…."

Oh! Yes! Jim would take it all in. All of Blair inside all of Jim. All of that passion and heat inside places that had been empty and cold, so frozen that Jim had been numb to his heart's ice until it melted. Leaving him a puddle of bliss and Blair.

Then they were both left boneless, flotsam from a passionate sea.

Blair snuggled beneath Jim's chin. "I knew you'd be good."

"Don't get too attached." Jim tried to force himself back to his hard-guy self. None too convincingly, if Blair's quick kiss was any guide. "This is just … getting off."

"Wrong Jimbo." Blair pulled the blanket over them both. "This is the beginning of a beautiful relationship."

x*****************x

By the time they reached the cafeteria, Jim had stretched out the soreness. Most of it was what he would list as 'sore in a good way', so no complaints. His senses were snapping, sharper yet more controlled then he could remember. Even in here, the air smelled forest fresh and the light shone like Maui dawn.

There was something to the kid’s Sentinel shit. Either that - or Jim was falling in love.

He settled beside Blair and dug into his French toast and sausage with gusto.

Hell, this morning even the food was tasting right.

He was leaning back, savoring his last cup of coffee and watching Blair hold court with half a dozen devoted minions when… oh no… trouble. The man coming up the left aisle was big, bald, and from the tight expression on his scared face - no fan of anthropology. 

The minions scattered.

"Senior Sandburg." The man stopped three steps away. Just out of Jim's attack-and-be-damned zone. "My hombres tell me that you received a package yesterday."

"People are very talkative." Blair focused on his spoon, polishing the bowl as if it reflected some secret.

"But my boys," the man pressed. "You know how they love your madres cookies."

Blair raised his hands, palm up. "It was a small package."

"Surely so no small, me amigo."

"As small as the favor I asked of your compadre, Luis."

The man took a sudden stop back. Like the step you would take when the rug under your feet went suddenly south. 

Interesting. Jim thought.

"He did not…?" The man was asking now. Asking as in asking - not as in request.

"Sadly, I have not heard back from him. Not a letter. Not a card. Not so much as a postcard with a picture of the Virgin. And after I arranged for his employment with my friends at the airport." Blair went back to his consideration of random tableware. "Perhaps his new freedom has confused him, and he could not find a telephone to call and tell his old friends how matters are going?" 

The visitor growled, a nasty wordless sound deep in his throat. "Perhaps he has broken his fingers, and can not write."

"That would be unfortunate." Blair agreed.

"I think maybe he is a very unfortunate boy. I will call his mamacita this afternoon and check that he is… being a good boy."

"Gracias, senior." Blair smiled broadly. "That would reassure me greatly."

Jim waited until the man was out of non-Sentinel earshot.

"So. That's how you run this place. Cookie power."

Blair chuckled. "Rewards **and** punishments, man. There's - like - studies on that. You've got to have the carrot **and** the stick." Looking around, he openly studied the busy room. His blue eyes grew somehow sharper - less puppy and more predator. "That's what fails about this place. The authorities only punish. So that creates resistance and at a moral level solidarity. There is no reason for any inmate to actually ally with the guard structure. No upside. Whereas alliance with a gang brings both discipline and protection."

"And sometimes cookies." Jim added.

Blair smiled. "And sometimes cookies."

x*****************x

After breakfast came work rotation.

Today they put Jim on kitchen detail.

Jim was impressed.

A privilege reserved for twenty-year trustees, kitchen was where shit came in and out. Official shit, unofficial shit… everything from Coca-cola to hot coca to cocaine. Anyone with two fingers could run an import deal in the side. 

Normally, moving in like this would get a man shanked, but the crew just smiled and welcomed him. Jim suddenly realized that all of his fathers' lectures about marrying up to move up might not have been so much bullshit after all. Stay here, and Jim wouldn’t need to move to minimum to get that private TV or any of the other luxuries Banks had mentioned.

Message received.

Jim turned down his nose and volunteered to unload the industrial dishwashers. It was a nasty, sweaty job. Not so much for the work (the racks of chipped plastic plates weren't that heavy - even soaking) as it was the standing in half an inch of rusty water dodging the steam that burst though the leaks in the dishwasher hatch. 

Jim tried to think of it as free sauna.

He didn't go near the pantry.

Didn't touch so much as a leftover bagel.

Let Banks get the message back. Jim Ellison might be easy - but in the lowest of his Vice days he had never been cheap.

After that they moved him to the prison store. Inventory.

Jim was noticing a theme here.

Wow, Jim thought. Big boxes of Snickers, and _he_ got to say how many there were here _before_ he started counting?

The guards were conspicuously looking the other way.

Feeling perverse, he didn't touch them.

Fuck, he was Mr. Sandburg now. He could probably just drop by and start a tab.

His fingers misted unconsciously over one of the stacked white tee shirts. Good pure cotton, soft and deep, not sandpaper crap like the standard issue. Bliss for Sentinel skin. Way out of the price range of a guy only making the prison mandated five cents an hour.

Maybe he would ask the kid what else - other than cookies - he was getting from his 'fan club'? There had to be some money moving somewhere. There always was.

Then he'd let the kid share.

Washington _was_ a community property state.

x*****************x

"Ellison!"

In the past, Bank's command voice would have snapped Jim's spine to attention. Today he just didn't feel like it.

He let himself slide down in the narrow chair.

"We have to stop meeting like this."

Jim had been infinitely unsurprised when after work detail he was escorted back to the interview rooms. Ditto for seeing Simon Banks. Who Banks had brought along?

"Plumber." He took in the bottle-blond conventionality that had once seemed attractive. "What bring you here?"

Banks must be worried, Jim thought, he's sending in his prime stuff like that.

"Can't I just want to see you?" She tried to sound gentle. Crappy actress, as always.

"You didn't want to see me when we were married." 

Not even before she confronted him with the gossip about his ex lovers. His gay ex lovers. And how had that been such a shock? Hadn't she worked in the same police department as he had? For even longer? It wasn't like Jim had been subtle about his tastes. Earring. Torn jeans. Waxed chest.

Jim sometimes wondered if that was why she had married him. Didn't buy that he was really bi. Figured that rather than respectability for sex she could barter for respectability and no sex. God knew she'd cut him off practically the day back from the honeymoon.

Woman was either frigid or gay. His vote was frigid, as no one could crawl that far into a closet. Could they?

"Things change." she tried.

"Right." If they said so. Not a lot of change here. One prison day was a lot like another.

"Things **are** changing." Banks moved closer. "Maybe you don't watch the news in here…"

Like it was Jim's fault? "Maybe we don't _get_ the news in here." And the scant hour of television they got would be wasted on a daily lesson on just how fucked the world was - aka the evening news. By the time you hit the state pen you knew first hand how fucked the world was.

Cons were smart, and watched telenovellas instead.

"You should." Caroline Plumber said. "Sandburg's in it. I remember how that turned you on, back when …"

Simon cut off the domestic cattiness. "We need to know what he's saying - to his lawyers and to you. What is the man planning?"

Jim looked up. "What makes you think…"

"Sandburg's no con, for all he's a sociopathic bastard. He's a college geek. Guys like that babble. About everything. The trick is to get them to shut up."

"And you think he's doing all this talking to me?"

"I've been to bed with you Jim." Caroline was smiling. It was less attractive than she thought it was. "You may have been a shitty husband, but you were always good in the sack." There was a moment of recollection before she continued. "I've been to bed with boys like Sandburg too. All brain, no body. No balls. Boys like that? They're like floors. Lay them right and you can walk all over them for years."

"Thus speaks the fond voice of domestic affection. I'm remembering why I was so happy to be divorced."

"Damn it James!" Carolyn pulled at her jacket. "You could always get evidence that forensics couldn’t. "

Ohh. And hadn't that stung. Part of Jim suspected that she could have forgiven him other men. Bringing other evidence into their marriage? That was an offense she would carry to her grave.

"Elections are coming up and you may not hear it in here but outside the Governors opponent is making this a big campaign issue." Carolyn looked… actually slightly anxious. "His research people caught my lab in a couple of tiny trivial meaningless little evidence mishaps and now Sandburg's groupies are all over the CPD for 'railroading' their little Green-piece-of-shit messiah. 

"The ACLU is appealing Edwards testimony, and if that gets tossed…? " Simon left the question for Jim.

"She talks or Sandburg walks?" And wasn't that a happy, happy vision.

Jim must have allowed his opinion to reach his face.

"Damn you, Ellison! You have to have some pride left in what you were! " Banks slapped the table. "The man is a killer. I need him off my streets, and for that I need evidence!"

"I thought that was ADMISSABLE evidence." 

And hadn't Banks always been the first one to yell about that - just before he tossed out another of Jim's arrests. Just because Jim had sailed a little close to entrapment to nab some smirking pervert who thought they could beat or rob some teener rent-boy and walk because of what the victim did to make his burger money. 

"Crap. I don't care if you beat it out of the little pansy. Just… "

In the past, Banks had managed to keep Jim convinced that the outrage really was a matter of keeping it straight - rather than the political bounce of clearing the grief for the well-connected of Cascade. But now? Seems the great god of police procedure doesn't rule when it is Banks' ass in the wringer.

What do you know? Live and learn.

"What is he talking about?" Carolyn Plumber prompted. "If not about the case then?"

"Mostly?" Jim saw no reason not to answer. "His mother."

"NAOMI Sandburg?" She squealed like a child at Christmas. 

Hell, if Jim had known how to get her that excited back when they were married? Well, they'd maybe still be married.

"Good. Very good." Simon Banks held out small box. It looked like a pack of cigarettes. Opening the top, Simon demonstrated the microphone and recording switch. "Get the hippie to say something that convicts her and… that could swing the election. The Governor would be very appreciative. We could be talking pardon."

And they could. They really could. 

Jim knew the sound of Simon Banks bullshitting, and this wasn't it. This was Simon Banks thinking. Something a thousand times more dangerous.

Jim should be thinking as well but? He tossed the package from hand to hand. "You know? You think I'm selling my ass - but you're the real whore."

x*****************x

Jim intentionally made himself scarce - which meant he didn't see Sandburg until lockdown that night.

Half of him was watching for Sandburg to send goons to find him, but the kid was either perceptive or well connected. Make that both. Jim saw a few faces that he knew knew Sandburg, but they didn't talk to him and he didn't talk to them. They maybe talked to Sandburg. Jim didn't know and didn't care.

He blew off food and headed back to his cell.

He was going to have to choose.

And either way he was screwed.

Sandburg? Well, he had killed all those people. Probably. Very probably. If Jim were still a cop, it would be Jim's duty to bring him down. Wouldn't it be?

Um. No. It wouldn't. It would be Jim's duty to arrest him and hold him for a fair trial, which wasn't at all what Banks was asking for. Simon Banks was asking Jim to 'fix' the system to cover some politicians' mistakes. Plus Banks wasn't asking Jim to do it because he still saw Jim as a cop. He was asking because he saw Jim as a mercenary.

Downside. A Ranger had honor. Lose that, and you might as well be dead.

Downside. Simon had all the power. Jim could very well be dead.

Where was the upside?

"Oh - Sandburg." Jim sat up as his cellmate came in.

Blair said nothing, just sat on the edge of Jim's bunk and rubbed his back.

Ummm. There was indeed Sandburg. In the here and now any way. Of all of the people wanting shit from Jim, Blair Sandburg was the only one who was giving… oh yes… he was giving _that_.

Jim sighed. Maybe there was something to the cookie idea after all.

Settling back, Jim rested his head on one arm. He reached under the bunk with the other. "Got a gift - from my old boss." He tossed the box with the hidden recorder to Blair.

"Cool." Blair flipped though the cigarettes then spun out bottom to show he knew about the hidden 'trick' in the treat. "Wedding present."

"So the roomie thing is permanent?" Jim shocked himself by asking. “Or are you moving back into a single cell?”

Blair pretended to think about that. "I decided I'd do better in the general population." He ran a possessive hand under Jim's shirt. "And I do mean IN the general population. Come here, mon general."

"I'm your general population? That's a MAJOR assumption."

"You have any PRIVATE objections?"

"I’ll see if I can CAPTAIN any."

"Don't." Blair closed Jim's mouth with a kiss. "I'd hate to resort to CORPORAL punishment."

x*****************x

"Ummm." Jim felt he ought be thinking but… "Good." That used all the neurons he had left after Sandburg had finished sucking his brain out via his cock.

"Good for me too." Blair shifted lightly. "Pass me a nut bar?

For a moment, Jim's blurred mind took that as some sort of weird Sandburgian come on but… the kid really was looking for a snack.

"Yum!" He licked the crumbs off of Jim's chest.

"Blair, I have got to know." Jim captured the hand that was reaching for more. "What the fuck is in those cookies?"

Blair froze. 

Jim could see the thoughts click together as Blair considered what and how much to say. 

"You know that I was working with the Chopec down in Peru?"

"The tribe that got wiped out." That had been in the news reports Jim had managed to track down.

"Not completely but… yeh. They were in bad shape."

"Because of the oil company that you… protested." Jim didn't think 'annihilated' would be politic just now - however accurate.

"Even before that. It never made the American press, but there were serious narco-mercenaries running their drug routes up the Rio Pacheco. Right though the Chopec territory."

"Actually, I did know that." Jim said mildly. "Not that it was Chopec land specifically, but… about the drugs. Back when I was an Army Ranger, my team was tapped to support the local resistance."

"Great idea." Blair sounded pissy, but Jim got the impression it was more 'so why not' than 'so why try'. "What happened?

"To me? Nothing." Jim allowed his mind to move back to what were - even when crap happened - happier times. "Two of my men came down with salmonella from a bad batch of burgers."

"Shit." Blair said. Devoutly.

"That was involved, yes. Along with less pleasant bodily fluids. I was the backup medic, and let me tell you…"

Blair held up his snack. "Please don't."

"Anyway, my team got scrubbed." Which at the time Jim had filed as 'just as good'. His headaches (the ones that had eventually dumped him out of the Army) had been starting up, and Jim was feeling the edge come off his readiness. "They sent another team but… somehow the narcos got intel and missile tech. The helicopter went down and the whole team was lost. Col. Oliver convinced the brass that the idea was too risky and… that was the end of it."

They hadn't even gone back for the bodies. Jim and his team had volunteered to go in for them, but the brass hadn't liked the risk.

"Bummer" Blair whispered. "We could have used you."

"I wish I could have been there for you." Jim hugged Blair quickly, then sat up. "And you're trying to change the subject. Which was Mom's cookies."

"Like I said, between Cyclops and the narcos, the Chopec were pretty much wrecked. Water polluted, crops burned, game animals nearly extinct." Blair's memories of those months were clearly a lot less happy then Jim's. "Jim, they had to have something to come back with or they'd never rebuild anything to come back too. The world nowadays, it's a money economy. You can't replant a rain forest with a couple of shovels and a Starbucks grant. But that's all the Chopec had. That and… Incacha."

Jim bent closer. "In-who-cha?"

"Incacha. The local Shaman who trained me."

Now that was a surprise. "So it's not a nickname?"

"Oh no." Blair bounced, amused. "I am a genuine registered religious leader. State licensed to perform marriages and funerals. Plus?" Blair made a sweeping cut with the flat of his palm. "The occasional radical briss."

Ouch. Jim suddenly had a … sharper… idea of just where some of the awed respect came from.

"Let me tell you, putting that on my CV raised a few eyebrows at Rainier. Not that…"

"Chief. Changing the subject again?"

"What can I say? I babble."

Jim gave Blair the look that said 'good try - no cigar'.

Blair crumbled. "Well, the one thing Incacha had was true tribal knowledge when it came to the local organics."

Jim didn't like the sound of that. "Like cocaine. So you took over the dealing."

"Not coke man." Blair waved both hands in frantic refusal. "That market's already oversubscribed, and by some seriously nasty people. There's really not as much profit margin as you would think, once you take in the risk and the … transport costs. Plus - like I told you - I've never been tagged with anything on the official USDA list of illicit narcotics."

"Meaning?" Because Jim might buy that Blair was telling the truth (he could hear the man's heartbeat, after all) but he would never buy that Blair was _innocent_.

"Meaning it's a big jungle out there."

Jim said nothing.

Then nothing.

Then nothing.

Blair broke.

"There are thousands of botanicals that Western science hasn't even catalogued, much less analyzed for active pharmaceuticals. Hundreds of compounds that do things western medicine hasn't even dreamed of."

"And you have?" It wasn't any sort of a question.

"Like I said, my mom's a true flower child at heart, and one HELL of a" Blair made finger quotes "cook."

x*****************x

Jim wasn't at all surprised when the next mornings work detail found him back on mop patrol. He had gotten one up on Banks, and Banks was letting Jim know just how far down in the scheme of things Jim really was. Not news, and Jim was hardly inclined to argue the point, so… big deal.

He'd been in the Army. He'd done worse punishment details - and for bigger fuck-ups. Whoopti-do and pass the mop.

He didn't even blink when the guards showed up.

"Got someone who wants to see you, Ellison."

Right. Simon Banks again. Or whomever Banks thought would get Jim obediently back in line. Too bad for Banks that even as a cop Ellison had never walked the party line.

A part of him hoped it wasn't Captain Joel Taggert. Banks might treat the other Captain as if he was just another junior officer, but Jim had always respected the man. It would be hard to send him away without denying that respect.

It barely got Jim's full attention when the guards swerved off into an office rather than the visitors' room. Banks or whoever he sent would be wanting a _private_ talk.

It was really no surprise when the guards fist meet up with Jim's kidney.

Just the CPD sending Banks' regards.

What did surprise him was the man who walked into the room.

"Earl Gaines?" Jim would have listed Gaines as one of those cops so straight you could use him for a ruler. But now he was standing there with an orange jumpsuited con Jim didn't recognize. This couldn’t be good.

"Seems you and Captain Banks have been having a little misunderstanding."

"Banks understands me just fine."

Gaines turned to the other men. "See? That's what I hate most. So many problems because people just won't try to communicate."

"Take Frank here." Gaines drew forward the man. "You might think that our different perspective would make us enemies - seeing how I sent him up here."

Frank snarled. Apparently he didn't like being reminded.

"But Frank understands that I was just doing my job."

Frank didn't look all that understanding.

"More importantly, Frank understands the importance of good communication. He let me know what he really wanted, and I'm doing my best to help him achieve his goals."

At a signal from Gaines, Jim was pushed down. The two guards hooked Jim's shackles to the opposite sides of the desk.

"In the process Frank is going to help me achieve something I've wanted."

Frank vanished from sight. A few seconds later Jim felt his trousers drop.

"My ass?" Jim made himself spit out the words. " I didn't know you swung that way."

Gaines ignored Jim. "Someone has always been needed to help you develop a better attitude towards authority."

Jim tried to stand as his legs were kicked apart. No luck. He winced as his face hit the desktop.

"Last chance Ellison."

"I thought that was ten years back." 

Gaines hadn't been pleased when Jim had ditched a chance at Gang Division to work Vice. He'd predicted Jim would come to a bad end. You think, Jim's cynical side supplied, that a man would’ve been glad to be proved right.

"I don’t think you understand your position here."

"Bent over a desk? Seems sort of self evident to me." Jim knew he would be smarter to keep his mouth shut - but then when had Jim Ellison ever swallowed his pride and 'done the smart thing'? If he was that sort, he's have gone to Homicide and taken the dirty bucks.

The cops must have caught on that Jim wasn't going to play along. Following the rules of CYA - they headed for the door. What they didn't see, they didn't have to testify to, if and when Gaines ever decided to give them up.

Gaines turned back. "Last chance."

"Get stuffed."

"That's you."

Jim bit his lip. Frank didn't prepare him - just slammed in. Even though Jim was still loose from Sandburg, it stung like a sonnabitch.

He desperately dialed it down as the bruiser went to work on him. The man was pounding in with a vicious intensity, like he wanted to break Jim in two rather than just **break** him. But he probably wouldn’t kill Jim. Not here, where there would have to be explanations as to why and where. So if he could just hold out and hold on… He could make it though this. He would.

Somehow.

Jim was near to screaming by the time Gaines strolled back in. "So, Ellison. Ready to work with me now?"

Jim struggled to lift his bruised face off the desk. "In hell!"

x*****************x

Jim had been dumped back in the cell by the time Blair bounced in.

"Hey Jim! Great news …" Blair spun though the open door, and was wrist deep in the cookie box before he actually looked at the other man. When he did, he froze. 

"Fuck!" The box dropped from Blair's hand. "Jim!"

"Thanks kid - but they already did that." Jim shifted, trying to lay on a part with fewer bruises. "Pass me the towel, will you?"

Blair was all sudden concern. He ran the water - hot - and laid the soaked towels on Jim's back. It helped. "What happened?"

"What happens. You know." Jim took a deep breath, possible because the steaming towels had eased the abrasions down his back. "Nothing to talk about."

It really wasn't. Jim wasn't the first man to get jumped, and unless the world ended without notice he wouldn’t be the last. They both lived with that. So?

"You were bouncy when you came in." Jim tried to turn enough to see Blair's face. "What's up?"

"Nothing." Blair busied himself with cleaning the dried blood off Jim's thighs.

"Don't bull me, kid. I need to hear someone's good news."

He did. He really did.

"My lawyer." Blair started hesitantly. "She came by today to talk to me. She's filed for a mistrial. There are tapes of Chancellor Edwards."

Jim had heard that name from Simon. "Your old boss, from Rainier?"

"Right. We have her telling one of the Deans how she did a deal with the D.A. A deal where she pinned the bio lab break in on me. Said she saw me there. Fat chance. She wasn't even on campus at the time."

Jim could feel Blair's hands quiver. Just a little. Only just so sentinel senses could detect the pause in the slow swipe of towels.

"We can prove that, by the way."

Of course Blair could, Jim thought. The man wouldn't say what he couldn’t back up.

"The deal was - she tags me and the D.A. doesn't file against Rainier for the part where they lost a load of Ebola samples and so…" 

"You're the goat." Pretty as a picture and just as easy to frame.

"Big time." Blair agreed. "But then the FBI _caught_ the guy who did the actual theft, so…"

So the feds were taking over and taking names, and wasn't _that_ going to be embarrassing for the D.A. Open files, mass appeals, disbarment sort of embarrassment. It couldn’t have happened to a nastier bitch.

Blair paused. "It's sort of complicated."

"I gather."

"My lawyer says Edwards has retracted her testimony and refused to retestify. My team is pushing to get all the 'evidence' taken from my office declared out of bounds, on the grounds that only Edwards allowed the search."

Jim nodded. "Fruit of the poisoned tree." One rule that every cop knew. If you start with a bad warrant, you lose everything that comes from it. Even evidence that would otherwise be good.

"Exactly."

"So?" Jim really wanted the rest of the story.

"So if the court grants a new trial with no Edwards, and no e-mail or papers -there is nothing to pin Cyclops Oil on me. They won't get more than conspiracy." Blair did a little war dance. "Time served, man. Time served.."

If that, Jim thought. First Amendment meant a protester could say a hell of a lot before incitement kicked in. Blair might have said the world would be better if Cyclops Oil and all its management were dropped to the bottom of one of their illegal oil wells, but any decent lawyer would point out that Blair hadn't suggested they should make the visit in any but the best health. He might have said that feeding them to a capybara was only a bad idea because it might upset the wild pigs. That same decent lawyer would point out that there were no capybaras in Cascade, and that the deceased oilmen had not in fact been served up as pig chow. Blair might even have announced that anyone who burned Cyclops and all its parts in its own polluting oil would be doing a service to the human species and all others. Which was close - very close. But? If there was any cooling off time or space? Any at all?

The most they could stick Blair with was conspiracy **after** the fact.

Sandburg hadn't even perjured himself.

He hadn't said a word.

Slick.

Very slick.

Jim wished he had had a lawyer like that. If he had, he might not have gone down.

Oops! Jim realized he must have said some of that out loud, because Blair was back with the fretting.

"Ummm. I can get her on your case too." Blair shifted uncomfortably. "She's very good and if she reopens the investigation then…"

"Don't!" Jim held up an urgent hand. "Kid, just… don't. Lots of things are better left in deep water."

"But Jim." Blair sounded hurt. "You. Me. We."

Jim shook his head. "You were born to fly free. Me? I don’t matter. Not in the long run. I'm not important to the world like you can be. And the we? Kid, there isn't going to be a 'we'. Not in this crapped on planet. Not once the Power That Suck figure out they can't play me against you. I'll be moved or I'll be dead."

Jim could feel Blair's fingers clench in instant denial.

"Don't argue!" Jim cut him off. "This is what **I** am the expert in. I've run it from both sides." He took Blair's hand in his. "If you have any chance to get out of this cage? Take it - and don't look back."

"Don't you care?"

Too damn much, Jim thought. "It's because I do care that I hope to never hear from you again."

"Jim." Blair paused, thinking. "Maybe I can't get you a new trial. That doesn't mean I can't send you cookies. Or …"

"NO!" Jim's hear was freezing. "Don’t! Promise me you won't. Ever!"

"Jim!"

Jim pushed on. "Because if the box ever came… then one day it would stop. And that would break me. So just smile and go and let me know that you are out there and free and loving every minute of the life you deserve to have."

And that, Jim added silently, will be my life.

He pulled Blair down. "Promise!"

"OK Jim." Blair raised two fingers. "I, Blair Joseph Sandburg, do promise that should I ever get out of here I will cherish my freedom each and every day." Leaning over, he ran a palm down Jim's arm. "In the mean time? I hope you don't mind if I cherish you a bit instead."

x*****************x

Jim slept so hard, he barely felt Sandburg slide out of the bunk.

There was some sound - but it mingled in his dreams and…

His dreams were strange. Jim didn't recognize the place, but his dream-self didn't find that cause for worry. The leaves were deep and green and very soft, and he could smell fresh water and hear the high note of a reed flute. There was a drum beat, or perhaps that was a heart.

In the distance, a wolf howled victory.

It was a fearful sound, but not for him.

Here he was safe, and loved, and very very home.

x*****************x

"Breakfast in bed for you mooks today." The guard tossed a brown paper sack through the cell bars. 

If Jim hadn't caught it, it would have landed in the toilet.

Jim passed it to Blair.

Blair turned down Jim’s offering, staggering back to the bunk. 

The other man looked fried. Death white against the black stripes of charcoal marking his chest and arms, with eyes circled purple from exhaustion. Blair looked worse than Jim felt, and really – if one of them should look like a man recovering from Class A trauma– you would think it was the man who had suffered from the actual beating.

The second bag landed on the floor. Evidently Jim's catching hand was too good to make the game interesting. Either that, or the second guard was just damn lazy.

"What’s with the lockdown?" Jim asked.

Guard didn't talk, but one of the guys further down did. "Rumor is that a guard got eaten by pack of wild dogs."

"Wolf!" came the correction from the other side of the walk.

"Moron." Jim could hear the eye roll - even around a blind corner. "There are no wolves in Cascade."

"Whatever."

Whatever pretty much summed it up for Jim. Whatever had happened, he wasn't going to get any real answers. Jailbirds never did. That was one of the reasons that jail gossip was so… creative.

"You're the moron." A new voice joined the fray. "I heard it was Frankie Marciano from block C. He tried to escape down the north tower, but his dick got tangled in the rope and when he couldn't stop…" Jim could hear numerous *ugg* and *yick* sounds, which meant that the other side of the hallway was getting a dramatic reenactment of the maiming. "Said he bled to death before they could cut him down."

"Yeh well, I heard they had to cut it off BEFORE they could cut him down."

Which, OK, yuck. Although by the time you were dead Jim didn't expect that those details mattered. At least Jim assumed that the man was dead when they clipped his dick. If not? Well, then Jim figured he'd wanted to be.

"Screw that! I heard…"

Jim turned down his hearing. He didn't much care what they had heard. It was all bullshit - probably - and bull or not Jim knew he could be hearing it again and again in the exercise yard grapevine. So for now?

He checked out the sack.

Stale roll.

Jelly pack.

Square of cheese. Gone hard.

Oh well, He'd missed dinner and he'd eaten worse.

Jim took a bite. Mold flavored.

He'd eaten worse, but just now he couldn't remember when. Maybe he'd just have some of Sandburg's cookies instead.

x*****************x

They were still in lockdown come lunchtime.

Upside? Jim got a pass on the day's bondage session. He didn't figure Gaines was finished with the 'persuasion', even if something terminal had happened to one or more of the sodomy crew. From Blair's twisted smile, Jim wasn't ruling all the rumors out. Of course, he wasn't believing them either. He told himself he was taking a 'wait and see' policy. As in, wait and see if you can figure out what the **fuck** Sandburg is thinking. Because whatever that sadist Gaines and Banks the bastard were up to, Jim was putting his money on 'Serial Sandburg'.

Downside? Ham sandwich. Green ham, and not in the cute kid story way. Three day old milk and an apple that… Well, actually the apple wasn't bad. Jim swapped his ham and milk down the cell row for a few more of them and a pack of dried fruit, which made his partner happy.

Blair never complained, but Jim knew that in the real world Blair hadn't been one for the 'white bread' diet. In either sense of the term.

They were playing chess (Chalked board, and the pieces were nuts and raisins. Jim was down two sultanas, but positioned to make a run at Blair's macadamia. ) when the cell door opened.

"Ellison."

"Banks, Major Crimes." Jim made the introduction, and made it sound like an accusation rather than a department title. "I can't say I've wanted to see him in a jail cell - but it's a good look."

"Well, they did say that when Mohammad couldn’t come to the mountain, the mountain had to get off its ass." Blair was talking to Jim, but playing the audience. Hard.

"And that shadow is his token honkey, Rafe."

The wince let Jim know he had scored, but the younger detective didn't speak.

"As you can see from the style, Rafe there wanted to be a pimp. When he couldn’t make the grade, he took to working it for Banks instead."

Not entirely fair, Jim acknowledged. It wasn't Rafe's fault that Banks used him as a poster child for every PR gig the captain figured would go down better with a frosting of white upper crust. Probably Rafe didn't even notice, and if he did he really wasn't in a position to tell his Captain no. Jim had, but Jim had a lot more experience with being the sort of loose cannon you couldn’t trust even if he was Bill Ellison's spare heir.

But then? Jim wasn't feeling real fair-minded right now.

Simon cut right to the chase. "Earl Gains missed roll call this morning."

Well now, that _was_ news. Jim couldn't force himself to frown, and he was too canny to smile, so… "I'm supposed to feel something?"

"He was a good officer, Jim!" 

Was? Now that was interesting. Seems that the 'missing' Gains wasn't expected to be 'found'. Meaning he had been. At least parts of him.

Jim made a big show of scanning the cell, as if checking for stray tenants. Then he shrugged and lounged back. "Well, whatever happened to the guy, I have an alibi. I was in jail at the time."

"That's right." Sandburg piped up. "Plus he has a witness."

Simon's eyes narrowed. "Jim. A man's friends can help him, but the wrong friends can drag a man down. Think about it."

x*****************x

He did. Frequently. Mostly in the mornings, during work time.

After whatever happened to Gains the guards had given up on the sexual pain-and-humiliation routine. (It was still very much a _whatever_ had happened to Gaines. Jim hadn't heard any solid details on the man's fate, and with Sentinel ears he was hearing enough gossip to suspect that the CPD didn't have any solid details either.) In a change of tactics, the Warden had decided to go the more conventional 'break them with hard labor' route.

Jim got rock breaking duty.

Sandburg too.

Ten to noon. Every morning. Big rocks into little rocks.

Then back after lunch. One to five. Little rocks into big piles.

If the brass was determined to break either of them? This was the wrong tactic.

Jim had once paid actual money for the joys of repeatedly lifting heavy objects over his head. If the outside yard lacked the piped in music and AC? There were bird songs in the distance, and real air coming in over the wall.

He noted with Sentinel vision the microscopic grain that marked the stones natural cleavage line, swung the sledge, and watched with joy as the tall sharp towers of stone flaked lightly into smaller slices.

Jim could do this forever.

Literally.

He had worried about the kid - at first. Sandburg had seemed like a natural office-dweller, and not the subspecies with gym-rat tendencies. Jim had apparently overlooked what chopping your way though five hundred miles of pathless rain forest could do for shoulder muscles. (Yumm!)

Plus?

Sandburg seemed to draw actual power from the earth.

It was spooky.

He didn't say or do anything special but…? You got the distinct impression that if Blair Sandburg wanted smaller rocks - the rocks _wanted_ to be small.

It was three days before Banks appeared at the edge of the rock yard. The man was looking pale, which for a guy with his natural advantages in the suntan department? Things had to be not only rougher than Jim knew, it had to be rougher than the newspapers and television shows had figured out. Spotting the twitch in the other man’s left eyelid, Jim corrected that last. Figured out… yet.

"I hear your parole board review is due."

"I hadn't heard." And Jim hadn't - but no biggie. So it was a violation of his constitutional rights? What here wasn't?

"I've asked them to table it until you cooperate." Banks was careful to speak from outside of hammer range. "You're going to become an old man in this yard."

Jim looked over to where Sandburg was raking the newborn gravel into broad gray swirls. "You do what you have to do. Me?" He smiled right into Banks' face. "I'm going to become an expert in Japanese rock gardening."

x*****************x

There were three more long days before the administration gave up and moved them back to regular duty.

Jim missed the rock yard - or at least the chance to stand on real earth - but Blair seemed glad to be back in his library so Jim was content. Jim saw a bit less of his buddy as Blair held extra classes to make up for the study time his GED class had lost while their teacher was 'away', but at night Jim had all the companionship he had ever dreamed of.

A part of him wondered if maybe it had _not_ been Jim's emotional impotence (his ex-wife's favorite phrase) that had scuttled all his past relationships. If he could make a go of it here? Here with nothing for support, and everyone and his brother against them? Well, maybe what Jim could bring - loyalty, fidelity, respect - maybe those were enough to build love on after all.

Or again - maybe it was just Blair Sandburg.

Jim was willing to believe that Sandburg could do anything.

Time at hard labor seemed to have cemented Jim's reputation as a hard man. Either that - or the gossip about Gains and company had _really_ gotten around. Jim wasn't exactly making friends. There were no friends in prison. (Sandburg being - once again - the singular exception to every rule.) He was, however, getting along. There were guys who would spot for him on the weight bench, and a space made when he wanted to join the floating basketball game.

Life wasn't good. Life in prison was never good. It was, Jim considered, a paler shade of suck.

x*****************x

It was the hour before breakfast when they came for Blair.

That made Jim nervous. He was on the edge of pacing the cell - or perhaps banging his cell bars in the best tradition of bad prison movies - when they brought his partner back.

"Blair?" Without census thought, Jim wrapped his partner in his arms. 

"Visit from council."

"Not very good council, if she leaves you looking like that."

"Oh, she's brilliant. It's just…" Blair clutched at Jim, as if some bedrock of his world had shattered and left him falling. "This is an election year. Did you know judges are elected?" Blair's question was bewildered. "Just like D.A.'s."

"What does…?" Jim stopped himself. What didn't matter, and this was no time for an interrogation. Blair had been fucked over by the system, and unlike every other john in the joint was still idealist enough to be sick at it. Jim was sick too, but only because the shafting had happened to Blair. That mattered. Details didn't.

He held Blair close, sharing wordless comfort until Blair came back to himself.

"I shouldn’t be shocked." Blair said. "She warned me this was possible."

"This being…?" Jim prompted.

"The Washington Superior Court declined to hear my appeal" here Blair made finger quotes "As it did not serve the interest of justice." There was a definite hiss on that last word. "Meaning they don't want the slightest bad press in an election year, and admitting that a D.A. suppressed evidence and _wrote_ Edward's testimony would be…."

"Arrrgh!" Blair flung his head back, shouting frustration at all the world and beyond.

Jim wished beyond measure that he could do something. Anything. He could only whisper. "I'm sorry Blair."

And hold him.

"But hey" Blair dredged up a smile from that inner depth that awed Jim Ellison. "Not all bad." Blair held out a roughly wrapped box. "She brought me more cookies!"

So she had.

They were mostly stale Oreos, like something you would pick up at the Stop-n-Shop just before you turned into the private road. Not exactly a taste treat. Blair gave most of them away to the other men on the row. Still, he did stash bits of the aged Christmas paper into along with a few cookies into his pocket. So the gift wasn't utterly unappreciated.

Jim figured it was like Blair had said - an emotional connection thing.

******************

Lunch was… normal.

Jim was trying to ignore the contents of his burger. 

The kitchen staff was still trying to please, but even the most devoted cook could do only so much. The purchase order might have called this beef, but there was a big difference between 100% beef and 100% cow. Jim's mind was trying to convince his taste buds that he could not actually detect cow lips or hoof pads in their ground and cooked form.

It was a losing battle.

Blair sat beside Jim folding origami frogs from squares of cookie wrapping tissue. Normally this sort of 'art and craft' would have earned scorn - or at the least off looks - from the general population. But once again Sandburg was miraculously exempt from what Sandburg would have called 'cultural norms' and Jim Ellison just called reality.

The frog flew over the table, slapping a guy at the next table on the chin.

"Sorry, man." Blair barely looked up.

Jin tensed for the riot that this 'disrespect' would bring, but the Sandburg zone was in full force.

"No worries, my brother." The huge con laughed and made the little frog 'hop' over a pile of fries. 'We all want to take a leap sometimes, no? Go over the walls and kiss the sky."

Blair glanced up - considering. "It would be a lucky frog that could jump that high."

"Maybe this is my lucky frog." The man smoothed the little paper legs before tucking it into his pocket.

x*****************x

It was the same thing at dinner. Blair behaving as if nothing had happened, and Jim going along because… what could he do?

Jim's secret joy was finding he truly wasn't glad about what happened. Not at all. Yes, this meant that Blair would stay with Jim. Maybe. But Jim was delighted to discover that he didn't want to keep Blair's body at the price of Blair's soul.

But while he had Blair's body?

Jim stood guard as Blair held court around the dinner table.

The origami morphed into a sudden fad, with even several of Kincaid's men coming by to pick up little animals made out of Blair's cookie papers.

"We haven't had much time to get to know each other, have we Ellison?" The gang leader said as he watched Blair meticulously sort his bright colored scraps. "I regret that. You're a good man. The sort of man I really could have worked with."

"With?' That was different. He would have expected a 'boss' like Kincaid to say Jim would work **for** him.

For a moment Jim feared that Kincaid might have been offended. Fanatics so easily were, and in a place like this small grudges could flash into huge riots. But the gang leader just laughed.

"Don’t get me wrong. I’d have loved to recruit a fine Aryan warrior like yourself. Just…" Kincaid nodded towards the center seat, where Sandburg was meticulously sorting his bright scraps "the Shaman tagged you first."

x*****************x

Blair insisted that they both go back to the library after dinner.

Jim leafed though the day old papers - mostly reading the sports pages - while Blair went over the next day's lesson plans. It was almost, Jim considered, as if Blair was putting on a show for the prison. As if he was saying - by deeds rather than words - that even this last injustice would not shake him.

Dumping the empty cookie box down the incinerator shoot, Blair pulled something from his pocket. A lint covered brown disk stuffed with dingy off-white goo. He waggled it at Jim. "Last cookie." 

As if. It was disgusting.

"You eat it." Jim joked back. "You haven't had one yet."

"Hey - Bruno." Blair Sandburg waved at one of Kincaid's men, who were slouching behind the encyclopedia. "Take this over to your boss." Wrapping the cookie carefully in his very last sheet of neon colored tissue, Sandburg passed it carefully to the bruiser. "Tell him it's from my mom - and that I think he'll get a real bang out of it."

x*****************x

Blair waited until the bell for lockdown before he let Jim lead him back to their cell.

The minute the bars shut - Blair froze.

Jim had been waiting for the melt down all day. Every man went mad at some point. The cage got to them, and even knowing it was hopeless the animal inside just had to strike out wildly for its freedom. He was thankful that Blair had held it back this long. Trashing the cell wouldn't get him solitary - probably. Jim tried not to fear much, but he was beginning to fear that he wouldn't make it for long away from Blair.

But Blair… didn't.

He also didn't speak.

Or even make love.

Blair just set his shoes under the bunk and went to bed.

x*****************x

**!!Boom!!**

FUCK!! Jim pulled himself upright, clinging to the bars that fronted his cell. His balance was gone, shattered by the concussion and blast.

He focused his eyes instead. 

Bits of bright paper swirled in the gray smoke, and Kincaid's cell door hung off its hinges. It looked like Blair's cookie paper. What the hell?

Kincaid rushed out, quickly shoving squibs of something explosive wrapped in touch paper into two more locks.

**!!Boom!!**

**!!Blam!!**

Two more doors gone - Jim realized - and with it any hope of retaining his hearing.

Blair was behind him, easing him back on the cot.

What the fuck was the kid up too? It wasn't Blair's job to protect Jim; it was Jim's duty to…

"Dials" Blair mouthed silently.

Right. Jim needed to take control and…

There was a rhythmic vibrato though the concrete floor. Running feet, Jim decided. The guards. Time to be very small. Jim slid to the floor, trying to push Blair behind him. The bunk would be poor cover, but it was something.

The first guard moved cautiously, weapon drawn. He slammed a fist into their cell door. It held, so the man moved on. A second guard covered him, blinking in the thickening smoke.

The moment the guard was past the broken cell door one of Kincaid's men slid out behind him. Something - likely a zip gun - flashed in his hand. "Bang!"

The first guard was down. The other was looking at the wrong end of his colleagues' pistol.

The other cons were shouting now, screaming threats or reaching out and crying to the militia to 'free them too.' The sound echoed down the concrete halls, amplifying until Jim's controls couldn’t protect his ears.

Kincaid ignored it all.

His troop formed up, moving down the hall.

When they reached Jim's cell, the squad paused. Two men stepped out, bright pink swans in hand. One wrapped a paper bundle in and around the lock, while the other applied a match.

**!!BOOM!!**

The shock of the blast knocked the cell door off its hinges - and knocked the bunk frame down on Jim.

Jim struggled to free himself, but by the time he had his legs free Kincaid's men had come in and gone and… Damnit! Jim watched in horror as hands pulled his partner out of the rubble. The man had Blair!

***Clang***

The door was shut against Jim, and braced with rubble.

A huge bruiser had his arm around Blair's neck.

"Please, don't hurt me." Blair was looking up where Jim knew the monitor cameras were mounted. His blue eyes were comically wide, tears welling up.

Kincaid's men dramatically ignored that plea. "Move! Now!"

Blair was hustled out, at the front of the squad of men.

Passing Kincaid, Blair held up a pleading hand. "Don't mess this **up** for me. I'm not a **flight** risk!"

Kincaid nodded, as if some secret message had been confirmed.

"Men! We have five minutes before the forces of oppression come in with gas and guns, and by that time I need to be on the roof."

"Fire door is open, General." Jim could hear one of the scouts answer. "We have block controls."  
å  
"Good work, soldier. Secure the landing."

"Sir." 

The lead men hustled Blair into the emergency stairs and out of sight.

"Now." Kincaid looked back from the doorway. "Open all the cells."

A hundred doors swung open. In ten seconds, Jim knew, a riot would be in full rampage.

Kincaid's last man raised his pistol. "Lights out."

He'd shot the electrical panel, Jim realized. The hall was in utter darkness. 

Feet were running everywhere, down the hall and into cells, and some ran just at random. Men were fighting to escape, or escaping to fight, or just fighting where they stood. Some were using the cover of chaos to steal or to avenge past thefts. Some were using it to even past scores.

The only thing no one was using was their head. Which meant that Jim had to use his.

"Come on, big guy." Jim could hear the whisper over a thousand screams. "I need you with me."

Blair was out there, and like he needed to breath, Jim had to follow.

He slid though the mob, angled for the stairwell Kincaid had chosen. The roof. The police helicopter. That was one way out but… there was no way the pilot was going to cooperate.

Could Kincaid fly?

Jim didn’t think so – had never heard that about the man – but maybe one of his followers could. Or maybe they thought they could threaten the officer who did fly into somehow cooperating. Or maybe Kincaid just hadn’t thought that far ahead. Jim didn’t want to trust the logic of a fanatic or the random bad luck that could be good for Kincaid.

Jim pulled himself up the stairs, reaching the landing just in time to see Kincaid's men sprinting across the asphalt.

The pilot was there - messing with some paperwork - but Jim saw that he wasn't alert. It took the officer a few seconds to make sense of the commotion, and by the time he had Jim's experience said it was too late. 

The pistol man popped up, gun to the pilots head. "No tricks!"

Kincaid and the man holding Sandburg piled into the rear of the machine. It was a large one, intended for medical evacuation or moving personnel. Jim couldn’t place the exact model, but he flown enough in various Army versions to have an idea of what this one could do. If Kincaid and his men got off the roof, they just might make it.

"Get in." The gunman went to the front, pushing the pilot in front of him. "You're going to fly us out of here, and if we still like you when we land, we might even let you live."

OK. Hostage and threat it was. Not really smart, given that a full-rotor packed a lot more damage than a semi-auto. But there was always the risk that the pilot wasn’t thinking tactically. Or at all.

"No taunting the P.O.W. men." Kincaid's voice was sharp, but not panicked. Whatever was going down, Kincaid knew the plan and thought he was in control.

Jim wasn't putting money on either side. It was just that fucked.

The rest of Kincaid's men hopped on.

"Kincaid!" Searchlights were strafing the rooftop, giving the scene the jerky action of a silent movie. "Surrender."

"I have a hostage!" Kincaid leaned forward, into the helicopter window. He had a second pistol, and it was buried in Blair's curls.

"You can't make it!" The amplified voice roared again.

"Please!" Blair shouted over the rising thrum of the motor. "I'm afraid! He’s got a gun! Don't let him hurt me!"

The rotors were speeding up.

"Sixty seconds." Only Jim could hear that. A quiet, confident voice from inside the helicopter cabin. Not, he thought, the police pilot.

"We will fire!" The loud speaker gave a crackling warning.

"No. Please!" Blair was crying out, his voice reaching the gathering forces below. Jim figured those were news people. He could see the reflection of camera lenses.

How the hell had the press learned of the escape? This was – what? Ten minutes? Jim wouldn’t have guessed the Governor had ears that good. Things must be heading to hell big time if the Warden had skipped the cover-your-ass option and gone straight to cover-fire.

"I could use a man like you." Kincaid shouted even louder. Loud enough to be heard even over the roar of chopper blades. "You're coming along."

No way, Jim thought.

Not without him.

Jim hit the launch pad just as the helicopter skids cleared his head.

"Jim!" Blair shouted. "Jim! Jump!"

He did. His fingers caught the last edge of the skid.

The helicopter jerked.

"Watch it!" Kincaid shouted. "He wasn't in the deal."

"Who's flying this chopper?"

The helicopter dragged, skimming dangerously close to a power line.

"The weight!" a voice inside warned.

"Ooops!" A blue covered body went falling past. They were over the wall yard now, and it was a long way down.

"Weight within capacity." It was Sandburg, and he sounded … amused.

"Guess that lightened the load." One of Kincaid's men laughed, then… doubtless at a look from Kincaid… added "Umm. Sir."

"On report for insubordination." Kincaid snapped back. "But well said. Sandburg, get us MOVING!

Jim clutched desperately at the slid brace as the wind picked up. He had managed to swing one leg over the slid itself, but there was slick oil on the underside and… Jim didn't think he could pull himself up. Even if they would let him.

"Here." Blair dangled a pair of cuffs. Taken from the pilot, Jim guessed. "Use this to link yourself to the strut. Just five minutes, but you have to hold on!"

x*****************x

He did.

It was the longest five minutes - make that years - of Jim Ellison's life. And he was including the night he spent stuck in the outhouse during basic training. And the time he got caught making out with Billy Preston behind the scoreboard. Yes, the time Carolyn forgot to close the sample bag and Jim tripped out on Golden. Although that last? Jim glanced down. His stomach reminded him that was not a good idea.

They were over downtown Cascade by now.

News choppers scrambled to follow, the camera searchlights flash up as the smaller machines flitted a thousand feet below. Two police choppers trailed behind them, the larger machines flying higher but heavier, beating the news crews in altitude but not in speed.

Blair was flying dead out, going for straight-line speed and only swerving when tall buildings threatened to pass too close. Jim was grateful for that. It was hard enough to hold on as it was, and if he slid? The cuffs might keep his hand on the strut, but the rest of him would be taking a long step down.

They were over the docks now.

Blair was being forced to maneuver, arcing tight turns as police cars rolled onto the beach road.

One Coast Guard chopper had joined the chase, and several police boats zoomed across the harbor.

If Blair was aiming for the three mile international limit? Jim didn't think they were going to make it.

"Target acquired." A calm voice - not Blair's - spoke in the cabin.

Instantly, all lights on the helicopter died.

The machine dropped.

Blair's voice came over the rotor noise. "Unlock yourself Jim." It was insane but when Blair spoke with _that_ voice - something inside Jim just **obeyed**. For a hippie, Blair Sandburg would have make one hell of a First Sergeant.

The helicopter passed inches over the open top of a cargo container. Small lights - glow sticks - marked the edges but the box was dead black inside.

"Ready?" Blair asked his passengers.

“Yes. Yah. Yep.” Mixed voices blurred together.

"Then it's time to say" Jim felt Blair's foot pushed him off the strut. "Do drop in!"

Jim fell, helpless, and then… bounced? Like someone had filled the container with the air mattress from hell. He could hear other bodies landing all around him. Softly.

The helicopter was rising now, rotors speeding up and…

"Here I come guys." Blair shouted.

There was a final plop and Sandburg was beside Jim. "Did I mention that I hate heights!?"

He hadn't, but Jim didn't think that was the sort of question you had to answer.

Someone out on the deck was shouting "Get the lid on it, men!"

Kincaid's crew jumped as one, using ropes to slide the cover back over the top of the container. Once the top was in place, they would be invisible among a thousand - or million - identical containers filling the Port of Cascade.

In the distance Jim could hear the helicopter turn madly, spin out, and after a minute or so… crash. The explosion was enough to light up the evening sky.

Underneath him, Jim could feel the air mattress slowly empty.

"Better move out." The voice on the deck said, calm and even. "Boat's leaving."

It was. Jim could hear the rope winches whine as they hauled in the tie lines, and the anchor clanged heavy against the hull.

A side hatch opened, and a brown hand passed in a glowstick. The chemical light used in camp gear. 

One of the men grabbed a cloth bundle from the corner. Shaken free, it proved to be old shirts and rough pants of the sort you might find in any second hand shop - or on any day-rate dockworker. Kincaid and his men changed quickly.

One of the men buried the light stick, bringing the hideaway back to full dark, before the hatch opened again.

Kincaid and his men crawled out.

Jim might have followed, but Blair held him back. Watching from hatch, he spotted a black-windowed SUV idling on the freighter's deck. Kincaid's men piled into the seats, leaving shotgun for their leader. The driver gunned the engine.

Jim could see the car quiver. The ramp to the dock was loose, starting to rise.

Kincaid jumped in, then leaned out the open door. "You will be remembered as a true patriot, Sandburg."

Blair waved. "I'll remember you too."

x*****************x

"Kincaid's escape." Jim was still in shock, even though enough time had passed to get them into the Captain's cabin and the boat safely beyond the three-mile limit. "You found out about this?"

"Man - I _planned_ that escape." Blair stood happily naked, the prison garb tossed under a chair. "You think that racist moron Kincaid could have pulled this together? No way man! Not only is he a natural jackass, he actually thought he could hire someone to fly a chopper INTO a high security prison and take all the guards hostage in some giant fire fight that would somehow magically convince the governor to pardon him."

"As if." Stunt like that just gave the powers-that-wanna-be a chance at PR with extreme prejudice.

"Whereas me? I've got the connection, the money, and… you would not believe what people will do for the right herbs.” When Jim's head shot up Blair added quickly. "No! Not like that, man. I mean I've got herbs that can make you look five years younger, or block viruses like AIDS, or hell - even stop hair loss. Not that I'm hinting or anything.” Blair ruffled the short burr of Jim’s nape. “Plus I'm just plain a better organizer than that idiot."

"So you fixed it?"

That gained another snort. Blair was clearly to busy sorting though a rainbow pile of shirts and vests to be bothered.

“But" Jim wasn't certain what he wanted to ask, so he settled for "Why?"

"Because - one." Blair held up a finger. "I'm the non-violent sort."

"Well, mostly non-violent."

Blair pulled on a slim set of thin suede pants. Commando style. It was almost enough to distract Jim's mind from the idea that he was … whatafuc…. a FLEEING FELLON!

"Non FIRST violence, at any rate." Blair shrugged into a silk shirt, adding a turquoise vest with brilliant tribal embroideries. “If I could avoid massive innocent casualties? Good karma.”

OK. Jim could –viewed purely from the perspective of his tactical training – see that Kincaid’s siege plan would have resulted in higher losses than Blair’s random chaos. Which was a terrifying thought. Jim decided, therefore, not to overthink that aspects.

“Also? If **I** made a break they'd know where I was going and who with. At least - they could make a good guess. As it is?" Blair shook out his hair, holding only the top layer back with a carved jade clip. "Envision about a billion pigs with tanks and gas and all that shit descending on good old 'Camp Liberty' to shake out Kincaid. Except? Blair smiled. "No Kincaid. And by the time they actually start looking for poor little kidnapped _me_?” Blair picked up a wide gold hoop, easing it cautiously into the hole in his ear. "We'll be back in the Chopec Pass, eating roast wild pig and drinking guava wine out of priceless Mayan relics."

Blair opened a carved box. The contents sparkled. Emeralds, Jim recognized. Gold. Jade. Freshwater pearls. Evidently ecological virtue was not, in Blair’s case, rewarded only with warm feelings of social justice. 

A random memory surfaced, stray trivia from a never-regarded World Civilization 101 lecture. The many of ancient nations of South America had been theocracies, ruled by priest-kings. Shamans. Revered scholars who had given justice and in return been gifted with treasure that had awed the Spanish invaders. Treasure, and absolute obedience.

Blair’s network of ‘friends’ assumed a much wider consequence.

"And me?" Jim asked. He wasn’t sure were he would fit into Blair’s free world.

"Dead-from-a-hundred-feet you?" Blair laughed. "I bet they are still scraping what they think is your body from off of all of those rocks we sharpened."

"So that's why..?" Jim wasn't certain if he believed that Sandburg had saved him as some sort of distraction - and if he did he wasn't sure he minded. Freedom felt… incredible.

Blair Sandburg took Jim's face in both hands and kissed him deeply.

"Fuck it! You're my Sentinel. My Blessed Protector. My Holy Grail. No way was I going anywhere without you." Stretching his legs, Blair straddled Jim's lap. "But you are such a straight arrow type that you'd have looked guilty and blown the game. I couldn’t risk it."

"So you figured you'd just use my protective instincts to trick me into escaping?"

"Hey man!" Blair held up both hands. Which was sad, because before they had been busy with Jim's chest. "If you _want_ to go back, we can drop you off. You can tell them you escaped." He leaned in, licking Jim's ear. "But why would you want to spend the next twenty years doing hard time when you could be doing this?"

The END (or not.)

 

© KKR 2008


End file.
